T206 Wagner and Plank - They both didn't want their image on Tobacco cards

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

We are all just speculating until/if we find solid proof but I think that Plank being pulled might have had something to do with several different legal battles and new Tobacco Laws at the time of the T206 printings.

I have to head out but I will try and get some of the information together when I get back. Greg and I were in a discussion about all of this a few months ago that I wanted to look into more but haven't got around to it maybe he will chime in here about it.

Some of what was involved is right around the time when the T206's were printed there was a new law (mentioned in the Neal Ball letter among other documents) about having permission to use a players image. One exception was if the image was prior to 1904? (I have to check on the year) and Planks E107 which is the same image as his T206 falls in that category.

The majority of what we found was in court proceedings right at the time of the T206 printings and there is a ton of information to sift through including
different laws for each state/city and Philadelphia was one of the cities that was pushing for stricter laws. One of the court cases involved a legal battle between ATC and the Peoples Tobacco (T216).

Going off memory of our little research project:

We found legal cases in Wisconsin and Philadelphia in late 1908/early 1909 against the tobacco combination regarding the use of coupons and cards. Pat found some advertisements put into Philadelphia area newspapers in 1909 stating that the ATC and Polar Bear's (interesting that this brand and this brand only is highlighted) 'tags and coupons' were still being accepted at certain locations (implying there was reason consumers would think they were not good anymore). Much of the context is rather vague sometimes but the Philadelphia territory is highlighted in a number of documents as being distinct from other areas by the ATC, presumably in connection with stricter regulation in the Philadelphia area.


Cigarette cards and coupons were made illegal in 1897 with a law forbidding essentially anything but the tobacco itself to be inside the box. The tobacco companies legal challenge lost. In July of 1902 an amendment was passed that rephrased it to ban coupons and 'indecent or immoral' pictures (perhaps a reason the T cards have few sets of actresses like the N cards, and the ones they did make are less sexual by the standards of that time than many of the N cards), but apparently there was some confusion whether this was specifically replacing the old legislation or supplementing it. In 1907, after a report from the Congressional Ways and Means Committee, it was amended again to specifically allow coupons and cards, as long as it did not materially increase the size of the package. The government being the government of course sought to profit by allowing the tobacco companies to advertise in their cigarette packs. They instituted a two cent tax in this clause on coupon redemptions. This seemed to me to pretty much explain why the spate of T cards came when it did. They weren't legal during most of the 'gap' between the Mayo set and the 1909 card explosion, and they were generally used instead of coupons because at this time there was a pain-in-the-rear tax and actually redeeming coupons, but no such tax on pictures instead of redemption prizes.

We found a ton of other stuff, much of which was posted in the Boxing board even though it applies across sports and non-sports, but I think this was the relevant parts that haven't been posted before.