Red Sun - Is it really a Louisiana exclusive?

[G1911]

Red Sun is the brand issuer of 2 card series’, the T211’s related to T210 and featuring 75 ball players from the Southern Association, and T226 that features 50 pugilists in the same design. Both bear a tag line for factory 3 in Louisiana.

They are typically said to be a Louisiana regional. The evidence I have heard for this is that Louisiana factory number on the back, and that the baseball player cards feature southern players.

The baseball players are credited to a 1910 issue, I’m not sure if any of the baseball guys have done extensive research on earliest possible date from the player and team designations. The boxing issue is very unlikely to date before mid 1910 based on the roster of names, though as prize fighters lack teams it’s tougher to estimate date. Earliest possible dates are very different from actual distribution dates which may be much later.

So I went searching to see what can be found on Red Sun. A factory number on back does not mean that is where the cards were issued or that they were local to that area, as dozens of T sets were issued far outside of the state or area where the factory there were packed at was located. They were probably printed in the NY area though they do not appear in the American Tobacco ledger or Fullgraff’s Brett records that are publicly available. That leaves the evidence for it being a regional issue in Louisiana the fact that it issued a set of Southern Association cards.

In 1910, the Southern Association had teams in:
New Orleans, Louisiana
Birmingham, Alabama
Atlanta, Georgia,
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Mobile, Alabama
Memphis, Tennessee
Montgomery, Alabama

6 of the 8 teams in Alabama and Tennessee, but the big cities of NO and ATL are represented as well. Possibly proof of some southern focus, but hardly of a Louisiana exclusive.

I found in Tobacco Leaf a statement that Red Sun was being distributed in the greater New York City area in 1903 (Vol. XL, no. 34, September 2, 1903 pg. 9; https://www.google.com/books/edition...&bsq=red%20sun). In an article titled “City Trade of Greater New York”, they give “a practically complete list of the various articles being regularly handled by the distributing depot of the local retail association”. Red Sun is listed under the “Virginia Cigarettes” category. I believe this does may not literally mean from Virginia, but is a style of smoking tobacco product. Red Sun was at the time probably distributed from Virginia.

Red Sun appears again in the August 20, 1904 issue of The Commercial & Financial Chronicle, which even I find to be an incredibly boring read (Page 738 is the one of interest here: https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover). A note appears that the Universal Tobacco Co., under an order from the Court of Chancery of New Jersey August 15, 1904, will sell all of its assets including its Red Sun and Sovereign cigarette brands and their formulas. “The sale will permit the carrying out of the plan to merge the company in the Commonwealth Tobacco Co.” The Commonwealth Tobacco Company was incorporated August 3, 1904 according to Open Corporates database (https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ny/9374).

An earlier issue (page 150 here: https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover) has a notice that some of the stockholders have filed for the appointment of a receiver, alleging mismanagement contrary to New Jersey law. It also includes a $1,000,000 10 year mortgage that “covers the plant and appurtenances and tobacco manufactured and unmanufactured now at 697 Greenwich St and 215 West St., New York; in the city of Lynchburg, Va. and elsewhere; also the personal property including the following trade marks…” among which Red Sun and Sovereign appears as the ones of interest to card collectors. Some of the other brands here, like Omar, we know from later documents ended up as part of the trust.


The November 30, 1907 issue of the United States Tobacco Journal (pg. 22-23 of interest: https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover) has an article about one of the anti-trust court hearings. It includes a recap of the testimony of Percival S. Hill, a Vice President at American Tobacco. Questioned on why in some cases subsidiaries posed as “independent when it was really owned by the Trust”, Hill stated that it was done “in compliance with the former proprietor, who retained an interest in the management of the firm,” and that in some cases it was because officers of the subsidiary believed the ATC was unpopular. The Pinkerton Tobacco Co. is explicitly called out here as having “concealed nothing, but said nothing” (Do baseball collectors know the T5’s are another ATC issue?). On the next day, there are more questions about Hill’s own letters to subsidiaries where it seems he tells them to cover up their ATC ownership. This relates to many other things previously discussed in research threads, about the shadow subsidiaries and the difficulties in proving ownership today. Anyways, the next section goes on at some length about Hill and the ATC arranging with ‘jobbers’ (which means independent local sellers) to deny doing business with competitors, including the Commonwealth Tobacco Co. of Lynchburg, Va. Whether Commonwealth owned Red Sun and Sovereign still or the ATC had bought them before its formation from Universal’s 1904 sale is not entirely clear to me at present, but I gather they probably already had secured these brands and owned them starting in late 1904 or in 1905. The days testimony ended with a reference to the old Universal Tobacco Co., with Hill being asked if they were a competitor. Hill’s answer is no, because he defines a competitor as “a concern that gets busy in the market with its products”. He is asked “Then the Universal company was not in the market with products?” and answers “Yes, but it wasn’t busy”. So it seems Universal survived but many not have been selling anything and was just a lingering paperwork company wrapping up legal affairs, or Hill is brutally slamming a competitor in court, which seems to be something he did when he had the opportunity.

Adding to the complications, it seems that at this time, or shortly after, Commonwealth was actually owned by the ATC. In a memorandum related to 1908 tax hearings (https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover, 187-188), John Yerkes wrote to the Ways and Means Committee about the old HR 6 bill that prohibited the use of coupons and cards in tobacco. He was the head of the IRS from late 1900 to mid 1907 and one of the government officials most looped in on the real scope of the ATC. Yerkes appears in some court cases in this period, speaking at some times broadly for independent tobacco manufacturers who were working together on the legal front to try to get the Feds to take out the ATC for them; he seems to have become what we would call today a lobbyist, counsel and advisor for these firms; his name will be familiar to the nerds who read the primary sources. He notes that since then, many of the companies that had opposed the passage of the bill had sold their “plants” to the ATC or its “allied companies”, i.e. it’s shadow subsidiaries. Several are named specifically before Yerkes states there “are possible others”. An addendum in the record provides a fuller list, apparently produced a little later. It includes the Commonwealth Tobacco company.

So it seems Red Sun was issued in New York City in 1903, and sometime between 1904 and 1908 it became a brand of the ATC, alongside Sovereign which issued T206 and others. It was shifted to being packed out of a Louisiana factory. Sovereign stayed in Virginia. It is possible they stopped selling the cigarettes outside Louisiana as part of this, though this doesn’t strike me as likely. The ATC is always trying to do the opposite, using regional limits as launching points to test a brand, and then trying to push it as broadly as they can if it performs in its test market. Shrinking a brand is not something the documentation I have found really shows them doing; normally such a dying brand is killed off. It’s certainly possible though. However, I can find no evidence this is a Louisiana regional brand. Just as Old Mill wasn’t restricted to the southern area of it’s T210 issue. It is possible the T211’s were distributed in some southern areas and the T226 in pallets shipping north. Is there documentary evidence in support of the Louisiana regional? Anybody have other primary source material on Red Sun and its distribution? I am sure there is much more than this that survives.

[RCMcKenzie]

I dunno. I think T211 are for the South. I've lost interest in the set, and am selling off my cards, but is it really a back east set? I don't see that. Like T215, they have been found in LA, whatever their origin or purpose. Why would people in New Jersey want to open a cig pack and see a minor league player card from New Orleans or Mobile?

[jingram058]

I have one Red Sun, Memphis (pre-Chicks, Turtles? Egyptians?) player-manager, I think, Charlie Babb. I got it in Charleston, South Carolina while I was in the Navy. I have only ever seen a few of these cards in the flesh. Talk about obscure. There apparently were others, but Babb is the only Memphis guy I have ever seen.

[Pat R]

Greg, Red Sun is in the ATC ledger. I've never been able to find much information on Red Sun but I did find a couple of ads where they were listed with the Liggett & Myers brand both ads appeared in Ohio Newspapers in 1914.

ATC Index Ledger page 1 - Copy (2).jpg

Liggett & Myers ad.jpg

Liggett & Myers Ad 2.jpg

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

Greg, Red Sun is in the ATC ledger. I've never been able to find much information on Red Sun but I did find a couple of ads where they were listed with the Liggett & Myers brand both ads appeared in Ohio Newspapers in 1914.

Thanks Pat. This page is one of the ones lost or destroyed that we don’t have though, right?

They seem to appear more frequently after the dissolution of the trust than before.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

Thanks Pat. This page is one of the ones lost or destroyed that we don’t have though, right?

They seem to appear more frequently after the dissolution of the trust than before.

Yeah it's a shame too because it probably had a card or cards attached to it like many of the other missing pages did.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie

I dunno. I think T211 are for the South. I've lost interest in the set, and am selling off my cards, but is it really a back east set? I don't see that. Like T215, they have been found in LA, whatever their origin or purpose. Why would people in New Jersey want to open a cig pack and see a minor league player card from New Orleans or Mobile?

I would guess, if I had to, that T211 was probably focused in the South. Like I said, it may be that the 226’s were more in the northeast and the 211’s in the south. The traditional narrative ties this set to a very small part of the south, which I haven’t ever seen evidence to support. Geography distribution might tie into what appears to be certain SP’ing in the 226’s.

However, I hate to assume or guess to fill in blanks, which is why I’m looking for primary evidence. A whole lot of what we’ve thought to be good guesses have been proven wrong by primary documentation the last few years. Why would a Piedmont buyer in Wisconsin or somewhere far away want a Boston Red Sock? They may well have also pulled a minor leaguer with a Piedmont back; it’s not clear to me minor league T cards were only issued around their teams city.

I don’t collect the baseball’s as that set to build will cost more than I think it’s worth, but I build the boxing series. The backs are one of my favorite ad designs. I have no interest in any particular outcome.