T215 Red Cross Tobacco
When it comes to prewar type card collecting, the T215 Red Cross Tobacco issue quickly becomes a white whale for collectors. Extremely limited in production, the cards are very scarce, and for some reason also very condition sensitive. Indeed, between PSA and SGC combined, just over 150 copies have been graded, and just one - a PSA 8 Cy Young - has graded above the EX/MT level. The overwhelming majority of T215s are in good condition or below (around 60% of all graded examples, in fact), and just a handful existing examples are strong enough to have attained the VG/EX level.
T215 cards were distributed in two different forms through packages of Red Cross tobacco around New Orleans. Although T215's have a New Jersey factory designation, it is believed they were primarily distributed in the Louisiana area and are considered a Louisiana issue. Red Cross tobacco was manufactured by Lorillard Tobacco Company in Jersey City, New Jersey. Like other "white border" sets, T215's were probably printed by American Lithographic Company in New York.
The first series appeared in 1910 and ran through 1912, while the second was issued in 1912 or 1913. Despite differences between the two types, they are all lumped in together under the same catalog number.
Like many tobacco card sets from the early 20th century, the fronts feature a lithograph of a player surrounded by a white border. Below the picture, the player's name appears with the city (and sometimes league) of the team he played for.
Type 1 cards: Red Cross Tobacco issued this first set of cards in 1910-1912. The fronts use the same images as the T206 including the brown lettering in the bottom border.
Type 2 cards: Red Cross Tobacco issued this second set of cards in 1912-1913. The fronts use the same images as the T206 except instead of the brown lettering in the bottom border they used blue lettering.
Both types have the same back, which is a horizontal advertisement for Red Cross tobacco, along with what many war buffs will recognize as the German Iron Cross.
Though sometimes confused with T206 cards, Red Cross cards closely resemble T213 Type 2 cards. Like most T-series cards originating from Louisiana, they're scarce.
T215 cards were distributed in two different forms through packages of Red Cross tobacco around New Orleans. Although T215's have a New Jersey factory designation, it is believed they were primarily distributed in the Louisiana area and are considered a Louisiana issue. Red Cross tobacco was manufactured by Lorillard Tobacco Company in Jersey City, New Jersey. Like other "white border" sets, T215's were probably printed by American Lithographic Company in New York.
The first series appeared in 1910 and ran through 1912, while the second was issued in 1912 or 1913. Despite differences between the two types, they are all lumped in together under the same catalog number.
Like many tobacco card sets from the early 20th century, the fronts feature a lithograph of a player surrounded by a white border. Below the picture, the player's name appears with the city (and sometimes league) of the team he played for.
Type 1 cards: Red Cross Tobacco issued this first set of cards in 1910-1912. The fronts use the same images as the T206 including the brown lettering in the bottom border.
Type 2 cards: Red Cross Tobacco issued this second set of cards in 1912-1913. The fronts use the same images as the T206 except instead of the brown lettering in the bottom border they used blue lettering.
Both types have the same back, which is a horizontal advertisement for Red Cross tobacco, along with what many war buffs will recognize as the German Iron Cross.
Though sometimes confused with T206 cards, Red Cross cards closely resemble T213 Type 2 cards. Like most T-series cards originating from Louisiana, they're scarce.
front variations
T215 Type 1 Marquard (brown lettering)
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T215 Type 2 Cobb (blue lettering)
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set checklist
97 Cards
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Lorillard tobacco company
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*The T215 Red Cross set is the only "Louisiana issue" that wasn't actually manufactured in Louisiana. Red Cross was manufactured in Jersey City, New Jersey by the Lorillard Tobacco Company. It is believed that the T215 set was exclusively distributed in the Louisiana area and therefore is considered a Louisiana issue.*
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The Lorillard Tobacco Company is named for Pierre Abraham Lorillard, who founded the company in 1760. In 1899, the American Tobacco Company organized a New Jersey corporation, called the Continental Tobacco Company, that took a controlling interest in many small tobacco companies. By 1910, James Buchanan Duke controlled Lorillard and the American Tobacco Company even as it kept its original name. In 1911, the U.S. Court of Appeals found the American Tobacco Company "in restraint of trade," and issued a Dissolution Decree to the American Tobacco Company, which created the opportunity for Lorillard to become an independent company again.
Lorillard Tobacco Company is still in operation today and markets cigarettes under the brand names Newport, Maverick, Old Gold, Kent, True, Satin, and Max.
Lorillard Tobacco Company is still in operation today and markets cigarettes under the brand names Newport, Maverick, Old Gold, Kent, True, Satin, and Max.
Excerpt from an article found in Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly titled The Tobacco War by Earl Mayo (March 1908):
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Along with its cigarette interests the American Tobacco Company had acquired a certain amount of business in smoking tobacco, especially from the Duke and Kimball companies, which had several popular brands on the market. The American Tobacco Company thus found itself competing with the manufacturers of pipe tobacco and Mr. Duke next turned his attention to bringing these firms and also the manufacturers of plug tobacco into line.
Two of the largest of these concerns were the P. Lorillard Company and Liggett & Myers, of St. Louis, the latter said to be then the largest tobacco manufacturers in the world. These two firms did not take kindly to the arguments advanced by Mr. Duke, and he thereupon proceeded to apply a course of treatment designed to change their opinion of the advantages of industrial combination. The campaign that followed was one of the most remarkable in recent business history, and it was waged on the part of the American Tobacco Company with Mr. Duke's favorite weapon, lavish advertising. The guns of the opposing forces were rival brands and these brands were pushed in every possible way with the jobbers, the retailers and the consumers. A single example will illustrate the scale on which the engagements were fought. The American Tobacco Company brought out a brand of plug called "Battle-Ax." The very mention of the name will probably recall to readers the time when the name stared at one from every dead wall and fence, when the tags that accompanied it were collected by users of the weed and their young friends for the sake of the prizes that they brought, and when the dealers (to whom prizes also were offered) were eager to introduce it to their customers. The pace was a hot one and it was set by Mr. Duke and his associates. Money was poured out in rivers, and even with the enormous sale developed by advertising there was a heavy deficit, but this did not trouble Mr. Duke. He was fighting not only for trade but for trade supremacy, and he knew that the bill would be settled later on. A man prominently connected with the tobacco business is my authority for the statement that Mr. Duke said to him :-- "We sank $4,000,000 in making 'Battle-Ax' known and getting it established, but since then we have made $12,000,000 from it." The influence which the popularity of an established brand exerts is well illustrated by an incident which occurred during the progress of this campaign. At the time when the contest was at its height there were on the market two rival brands of " long-cut," one owned by the American Tobacco Company, and called "Honest," the other the ''Red Cross'' of the Lorillards. These two brands fought each other all over the country. In certain sections, however, "Red Cross" was so firmly entrenched that it seemed almost impossible for "Honest" to secure a foothold. This was notably the case in New Orleans, ''Red Cross'' being in great favor with the negro tobacco chewers there. At that time it was customary in the tobacco business to make the same brand of varying strength to suit the demands of different markets. For instance, the ''Red Cross '' sold in New York was a lighter and milder quality than the "Red Cross" sold in New Orleans, the heavier and darker kind being demanded by the Southern market. When several months had gone by and the effort to make '' Honest'' longcut popular in New Orleans had proved unavailing, a mistake was made by which a large quantity of the lighter stock of '' Red Cross '' prepared for the New York market was shipped to New Orleans, and the shops there were stocked with it. As soon as the consumer inserted his jaws in a specimen of the new supply of his favorite brand, however, he realized that it was different and less satisfactory than his previous purchases. At the same time a supply of '' Honest '' which had been made especially heavy for the New Orleans market was put into the shops and almost immediately the sale of '' Red Cross'' began to fall off while "Honest" went to the front. The fight continued with unabated vigor until 1898. The great firm of Liggett & Myers, as well as some of the smaller manufacturers, had declared that they never would sell out to '' the trust," but in 1898 this establishment, together with the Blackwell's Durham Company and the National Cigarette and Tobacco Company, was sold to the Union Tobacco Company, the capital of which was $10,000,000. It was the general impression at the time that the Union Tobacco Company was formed to fight the American, but about six months after the consummation of this deal the American Tobacco Company took over the business of the Union Tobacco Company—and Mr. Duke was president of the American. |
