Exciting Ramly Discovery

[Eggoman]

Hey Jon:

GREAT bit of Sleuth-Work! Just thought that I'd add this scan for fun!!

[rjackson44]

Thanks man

[Leon]

Great work, Jon. You are my hero for cigarette packs!

Here is a postcard that goes with the subject.

[sb1]

I have studied that post card many, many times and today was the first time I saw the T. T. T. in the upper right corner.

[chriskim]

Found these pics. is this just a regular Ramly box? not sure what kind of info u can pull from these pics for your research.

This one has the green box but has the red box inside printing. Not sure this is just a common thing for those Ramly box that has 1910 tax stamp.

[BeanTown]

Super eye candy in this thread. Being a postcard guy, I have to say that Leon’s Postcard is off the charts cool. When you are ready to move it, please send it my way!!!

[sb1]

Another combination of the existing wrapper, the old box color, a 1910 stamp and the Cambyses text inside. So a new combination.

I think they may have been using existing box stock that they had as the Mentor Cigarette Packs were also a red box.

Originally Posted by chriskim

Found these pics. is this just a regular Ramly box? not sure what kind of info u can pull from these pics for your research.

This one has the green box but has the red box inside printing. Not sure this is just a common thing for those Ramly box that has 1910 tax stamp.

[jbsports33]

Outstanding! Great stuff - thank you for sharing

Jimmy

[canjond]

Thanks everyone for posting. Amazing stuff!

Chris - that’s the first I’ve seen of another Cambyses. Of course, I didn’t even know that connection existed before last week. As Scott said, this is definitely a new combination (black box, Cambyses interior).

I’m starting to agree with Scott that these boxes may have been utilizing either extra box stock, or instead extra label stock (or both), before possibly switching the exterior printing over to Cambyses as well (as opposed to retaining the Mentor language on the front). As of now, I’m not aware of a Ramly box with Cambyses printed on the front, but let’s see if one comes forward. It’s also interesting to note that both of these Cambyses Ramly boxes have 1909, Series of 1910 tax stamps. So, the year of manufacturer is proving important as suspected given a likely transition from Mentor to Cambyses.

There’s also 2 interesting observations that I didn’t note in my write up above because I didn’t know what to make of them, but seeing the new Cambyses box posted now gives additional support to calling it out.

First, if you look closely at the Ramly labels on the 2 Cambyses boxes, you will see that the upper portion of the gold border displays the little raised dots that go across the top of all of the Ramly boxes, including the Mentor Ramly boxes. It's a consistent pattern. However, when you look at the lower gold border on the Cambyses boxes, you will note that the bottom row of raised dots has been trimmed off, even though that bottom row of raised bumps appear on the Mentor Ramly boxes. When I first saw the missing bottom border bumps, I had originally thought that this new Cambyses Ramly box must be slightly shorter than the Mentor boxes, but that thought was quickly dispelled when I compared the sizes, and truth is, the full label would fit on the box from top to bottom.

Second, when you look at the back label seam of the 2 Cambyses boxes, you will see the label overlaps more on the Cambyses boxes when compared to the Mentor boxes. It's really evident when you look at the eagle - it is a bit squished on the Cambyses boxes, and one of the moon and stars is partially cut off (because it’s under the overlapping label). This overlapping is clearly due to the fact that the Cambyses boxes are just slightly smaller than the Mentor boxes width wise. So, going back to the point above about utilizing left over stock, it appears that instead of printing new outer labels that fit the slightly smaller Cambyses boxes, they utilized the left over stock of Mentor Ramly labels that were slightly larger.

These observations may be even more proof that the transition from Mentor to Cambyses happened in 1910, since they are seemingly utilizing left over stock on boxes that likely date to 1910 based on the tax stamps. Again, I wonder if a 1911-1914 Ramly box comes to light, whether that would have Cambyses printed on the front.

Really neat stuff!

[sb1]

Jon,

Nice work....I guess it's best you ended up with the box, I never would have delved this deep.

Although there are very few instances of anyone finding T204's in a box, there are two that I am aware of.

A "find" purchased by another board member years back had the Ramly Turkish Cigarettes Mentor Co. black box as we have known before filled with T204 cards, there was literally no room side to side in the box, the smaller Cambyses box I don't believe would have been large enough to hold a card.(pic attached of cards in find box).

Further as I recall, the box from Leon's collection once housed a raw card that he got graded(box pic attached from Heritage Auction of his collection).

The very few newspaper ads promoting the Ball players pics in the packages that I found were July 1909, further tying together the black Mentor Co. labeled box front and the actual T204 cards. The large two known store displays are dated 1909 and one has two of the Ramly Turkish Mentor box fronts attached to it(owned by a board member), mine never had any boxes adorning it.(scans attached). I also found a Red Sox Score card from 1909 with an ad for the T204 cards(scan attached).

Another Ramly Turkish Cigarettes Mentor Co. box was also found with all 10 cigarettes AND the 1910 offer for the photogravure. The newspaper ads are all from 1910 for those. (Box and coupon with 1910 stamp attached).

It appears Timayenis and the later owners/execs. ran several different campaigns, 1909 was the introduction of the T204 cards as we know them, which was only advertised for a few short weeks, although they might have been offered the entire season. The images used for the set were all Carl Horner images, rotated ever so slightly. Given Timayenis' business acumen, chances are he pirated those and may have been called out on it by Horner and the card campaign shortened.

The 1910 campaign appears to be for the large photogravure, of which three are now known. They are on very fragile newsprint type stock and most would not have survived.

1912 we now know that Mentor Co./Cambyses promoted a Red Sox photo or premium of some type. It's entirely possible they did something in 1911 as well.

All that being said, I believe the card issue is confined to 1909, bolstered by the players and their respective teams. The new Red Cambyses box and ad for the 1912 Red Sox item certainly make for a premium/photo of some type to search for.