A T206 pulled from a 1910 era Piedmont pack

Written by T206museum (January, 2001)

Images From The Auction

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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.