Joe, you might have to think outside the box , so to speak, on this issue. While I have never heard of or seen a Polar Bear card that didn't have some type of stain on it I'm sure it's possible. I still think the cards with no gloss were inserted into something....whether it was a tin of tobacco or a pack that we have never seen I don't know. The Glossy cards , I believe, were most likely an enticement or advertising tool used to either promote the brand to dealers or entice customers to come back for more. If that's the case, how many free Cobb cards would a smoker have to receive or be offered before they just told the sales clerk " no thanks , I've already got some"
The staining on the Goodwin Auctions card could actually be a water stain of somekind too , in my view. It is brownish, but it doesn't look like a stain made from a card laying on or against tobacco.necessarily.
You can uncover all the historical evidence you would like to share on Chewing of Tobacco, but I have an actual expample of a person who smoked cut plug ( my grandfather). I asked my dad again today if he though his dad ever chewed tobacco , and he laughed at the idea and said definitely " no". So despite the fact that ATC used the terms associated with "chewing" tobacco, I still believe it was smoked in cigarettes and pipes back then.
Maybe folks who bought TY Cobb thought it was crappy to chew and crappy to smoke. Maybe it wasn't the finest tobacco on Earth as they said it was and people just rejected it in the few months it was available.
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