A T206 pulled from a 1910 era Piedmont pack
Written by T206museum (January, 2001)
Images From The Auction
Images From The Owner Who Pulled The Card
Between 1880's and 1910's, tobacco pack manufacturers inserted tobacco cards into their
products to help out the sales and strengthen the pack to avoid damaging the cigarettes during
transport.
A tobacco pack collector who recently purchased a 1910 era Piedmont pack on eBay. It
was sold by a person who obtained the pack in a box with lot of old cigarette lighters
in a yard sale.
The auction was titled as "PIEDMONT CIGARETTES ORIGINAL PACK OF 10". The following was
the auction description:
"The pack is an original package with the cigarettes still contained within. Pack has the
original internal revenue stamp with Dewitt Clinton series of 1910. The cigarettes were
manufactured in Factory No. 25 of the 2nd Dist. of Virginia. Some light staining on one
side of the pack, otherwise it is in overall very good condition considereing the age and
that it is paper. A really nice item to add to a collection of old tobacciana."
In fact, the auction description failed to mention the pack is completed with 10
cigarettes, original tin foil and paper packaging inside.
The only damage was the seal on one end of the pack. The other end with the dated
"AUG 5, 1909" tax stamp is still completely intacted.
The seller was completely unaware that his pack held tobacco card until he started
receiving requests from potential bidders. He did checked the pack after all
those requests and obviously hadn't completely inspected the whole package. (We have verified
with the seller and he did admitted he only roughly inspected the pack by just looking
from the opening of the pack since he was feared that he would damage the thin foil and brittle
inter-package.)
After the highest bidder received the Piedmont pack from the seller, he didn't even bother
to inspect the pack since the pack was not described as unopened and the auction description
did mentioned the pack has been inspected by the seller. A few weeks later, the owner noticed eBay had
a Sweet Caporal pack with closing bid at $2,800. That Sweet Caporal pack has the same 1910 tax stamp that
was on his Piedmont pack. He started curious what was inside his Piedmont pack and carefully
inspected his pack. He noticed the inter slide-out-shell was not movable since the tax stamp is still
tightly glued on it with the outer shell. The owner carefully checked the tin foil wrapped content.
Surprisingly, he found a T206 Otto Knabe card inserted
inside the foil content along with 10 cigarettes and the Piedmont card back was in direct
contact with the cigarettes.
The condition of the T206 Otto Knabe is in Nr-Mt condition with slight tobacco stains on the back.
The bottom left corner has a slight hint of touch. The card is off center to the left and the blue
background color has slight registry problem.
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