Wrong catalog year on the Obak T212-1's?
 

I've been doing some research on the T212 Obaks and I'm pretty sure the 1909 date assigned to the T212-1's is incorrect. I don't think they even started producing the Obak cigarettes until 1910, I can't find any information on Obak cigarettes prior to late February 1910. In searching old newspapers from 1910 and earlier there are 254 ads and articles on Obak cigarettes but nothing prior to mid February 1910 and that's when they start what appears to be an ad for a new cigarette based on the wording.

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Then later in the year they came out with an ad that seems to indicate the success of their new cigarette.

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I think a lot of the vintage sets were originally dated by the players and their teams if there wasn't additional information to go by but without taking into account that in most cases the players and teams used in the sets were from the previous year. Using just one example we know the distribution of the first series for the T206's began in June or possibly May 1909 Harry Pattee who is in the first series printing only played one year in the Major Leagues and that was for Brooklyn in 1908 and if you look at the rest of the first series everything lines up with 1908 not 1909.

You might be onto something.

I did some digging via Google, and that led me to page 10 of volume 72 of the United States Tobacco Journal.

https://i.postimg.cc/Rh24q5Pd/Obak-Registration.jpg

For those who can't get the image, it states that the name was registered as a trademark on August 11, 1909.

I also found some language that seems to originate from an auction house about the Obak brand starting in the 1860s, but I couldn't find an original source. (The key is looking for the John Bollman Company.) My takeaway is that it's not impossible that the name was resurrected.

Registration dates are pretty conclusive. I think you are onto something Pat.

With a lot of these sets, I have found it much better to simply throw away all extant 'knowledge' about the set and start from zero, because most of what it is said we know is somebody's guess or hobby myth. Little to no actual research was done for the big books, catalogs, and 'general knowledge' that is published and stated around the hobby for most sets.

The tobacco sets seem to generally lag the real world by quite a bit. T220, to use as an example because we have some of the most complete information on it over other tobacco sets, has it's pre-production testing performed in September of 1910, but many of it's backs for active athletes just end in 1909, or even 1908. It wouldn't surprise me if they used rosters from a year before production here.

I can find nothing before the registration. I did find that a May 13, 1910 issue of The Retail California Grocers Advocate publishing the prices (presumably of a case/carton to the retailers, not customer facing) of SF area cigarettes. Interesting Obak got the card premiums at all instead of other brands, looks like a cheap brand introduced for the bottom end of the market.

And to piggyback off Lobo's post; here is a second primary source confirming the same. This appeared in The Trade Mark Record, which was not specific to the tobacco industry but increased pretty much all registrations for commercial product.

I did search the John Bollman Company prior to posting this thread and from the information I found it seems the company might have been formed in 1899. The John Bollman Company also manufactured Imperials cigarettes and the first ads I found for them was in 1906

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The Imperials cigarettes are confusing because there was an Imperial Cigarette without the s that was made by a London Company starting in the 1880's I also found a 1905 ad placed by Jno Bollman looking for "girls" to make Imperial cigarettes.
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Further research revealed a suit filed by a Japanese company against the John Bollman company for using "white girls" as workers instead of "Japanese girls" that they had agreed on. I haven't found anything yet on the outcome of that suit.

More info, love it.

That passage I thought might have been from an auction house is also available via Cardboard Connection: Obak Tobacco

Not holding my breath, but I'm wondering what their source is for those decades prior.

Good insight, Pat, thanks for posting. I think you're right.

Some of us look at old cards and try to force onto them what we learned about cards as kids. For us, cards became available as a new season approched, and would change each year. That is NOT how it was 100 years ago.

Keep researching and posting, please Sir.

I'm not finding anything on Obak from 1860-1909.

Here's the newspaper account of the Japanese lawsuit I mentioned.

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Interesting stuff Pat, Greg and Lobo. I went through the records of each of the 76 players issued in the (1909) Obak set, and each of the 76 players were a member of their respective teams in 1909 as seen on their 1909 Obak card. Four of these players split their season between two PCL teams - more on that later.

Only 46 of these 76 players were on the designated teams on their cards for the 1910 season. So it definitely seems like the card designations were based upon the 1909 rosters.

PCL records are a less than ideal, at least for the 1909 season that I was able to research on the internet, as those four players that spent time on two teams do not have the stats broken down for each team, just their season totals. Those four players that split their 1909 season between two teams:


Mickey LaLonge - card shows Oakland, records show he played for Oakland and Sacramento

Jim Byrnes - card shows Sacramento, records show he played for Sacramento and Oakland

Anson Mott - card shows Vernon, records show he played for Vernon and Sacramento

Roy Willett - card shows Vernon, records show he played for Portland and Vernon


The order of the teams of the four players above are in the same order as seen on their statistical records on the Baseball Reference website. I am not positive if this is the team order that each player played during the season, but I would guess it is. LaLonge, Byrnes and Mott have the teams that are designated on their cards which are teams that are listed first in their statistical record, while the designated team on the Willett card is the second team as shown in his statistical record.

Although I did not locate any biographical career info on LaLonge, Byrnes and Mott, I did find that Roy Willett was released from Portland on June 8th, 1909, and that the earliest record of him playing for Vernon was June 13th, 1909.

So it appears likely that the earliest that this first series of Obak cards (1909) could have been in pre-production is the second half of June 1909.


For a visual, here is an uncut 1909 Obak sheet of 76 cards that has all four players on it. It is shown on two scans, because the image of the full sheet I found was awfully small.

LaLonge - top row, 1st card on left

Byrnes - top row, 7th card from left

Mott - 3rd row, 11th card from left

Willett - 3rd row, 12th card from left


Brian

Since no one posted after my above post, I will summarize it below with added thoughts.

With the uncut sheet as evidence, and based upon when Willett, whose card has a Vernon designation and even partial 'Vernon' seen on the uniform, joined the Vernon team (approximately June 13, 1909), my belief is that the earliest that production on 1909 Obak cards could have occurred is sometime during the second half of June, 1909, perhaps in conjunction with getting the Obak cigarettes ready for the market. Which at least partially helps bolster Pat's observations concerning the start of the Obak brand. Though I could see a late summer or even autumn 1909 issuance of this set, which could also account for its relative scarcity versus the cards from the 1910 and 1911 sets.

Brian

I just did some research on Newspapers.com, and found the following:

LaLonge/Byrnes - The Aug 16, 1909 San Francisco Examiner has a headline saying "Oakland Trades Mickey LaLonge for Jim Byrnes and Heine Jansing.
It says the trade occurred on Aug 15th.

Mott - Listed in the following boxscores (all games were the previous day):

3 Apr 1909 Fresno Morning Republican, with Vernon
3 Jun 1909 LA Evening Express, with Vernon
1 Sep 1909 LA Times, with Vernon
2 Oct 1909 LA Herald, with Vernon

I also looked in Oregon newspapers, and there are none that list him with Portland. All the boxscores I found in both California and Oregon, have him in only Vernon boxscores.

So, based on the following:

Willett going from Portland to Vernon in mid-June (card shows Vernon)

LaLonge going from Oakland to Sacramento in mid-Aug (card shows Oakland)

Byrnes going from Sacramento to Oakland mid-Aug (card shows Sacramento)

The 1909 Obaks were finalized between mid-June and mid-Aug, 1909.

Steve

+1

Nice newspaper legwork Steve. I think that your timeline is a good one, though I think the mid-August time frame could be stretched out some, just because of the possibility that the producers may not have been dilligent on keeping up with last minute team changes, such as was the case for LaLonge and Byrnes.

As far as Mott, the PCL did have longer playing seasons, with teams in the league playing between 204 and 215 games in 1909, including Oakland with 213 games and Portland with 209 games, so his playing time with Portland may have come later in October.

I edited my original post because I flubbed the 2nd team Byrnes played for (Oakland instead of Vernon)

Brian

Edited: My mistake this is an image of a coupon for cabinet size photographs of the T212-3 subjects not T212-2.

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That's a good mistake. It helped revive a great thread with important research.