This post may not be of interest to everyone. It concerns 19th century non-sport tobacco cards and database management. I apologize in advance for the length and my poor communication skills.
During the past couple months, I’ve been working on adding/editing 19th century, non-sport tobacco cards.
It has been an enjoyable project. I’ve learned a lot; not only about tobacco cards but about how the TCDB functions as well. Thanks to everyone who has provided help, guidance, and feedback. Please forgive my mistakes. I am working on fixing those I know I’ve made and would appreciate feedback and/or guidance on those that I don’t know about.
I’ve reached a point where tobacco sets are becoming as confusing as modern sets in terms of variations and/or parallel sets. In my humble opinion, we/Admin need to decide how we list Tobacco sets. It may be that a standard already exists and I don’t know about it; which is why I’m using public forums instead of bothering Admin.
I’m going to use two sets to illustrate the problems I am running into. One is a fairly simple set, 1889 Industries of States (N117), and one is a complicated set, 1910 Men of History/Heroes of History (T68). A good overview of the Industries of States set can be found here on the Vintage Card Reference Blog. A not so good description of the T68 set can be found here at the American Card Catalog Blog.
The Industries of States set is a 25-card series depicting “images of a woman, many times semi-topless, with a state shield and the industries that a state was known for listed at the bottom”. The cards were produced by two companies. W. Duke, Sons & Co. distributed the set with advertising for the brand Honest Long Cut Tobacco and G.W. Gail & Ax distributed the set with advertising for the brand Navy Tobacco.
The two different advertisements creates two back variations, each distributed by a separate company. The fronts of the cards are identical.
The American Card Catalog lists this set as a Duke issue titled, “N117 - Industries of States” with notes stating: “(a) Duke (b) Gail & Ax”. This implies a : “N117a – Duke” set and a “N117b – Gail & Ax” set. This seems easy and in a sense it is.
The Heroes of History / Men of History set contains 100 cards issued in two series. Series 1 (1-50) Heroes of History and series 2 (51-100) is Men of History. The cards were produced by the American Tobacco Company and advertise four brands; “Royal Bengals Little Cigars”, “Miners Extra Smoking Tobacco”, "Pan Handle Scrap”, and “Natural Leaf Scrap”. Both series depict a portrait of a famous man (or woman) on the front. The backs have a short bio on top and a tobacco add on the bottom. The card front and the bio is the same for all variations.
This would normally mean that there are 4 back variations. However, to make matters more confusing, “Royal Bengals Little Cigars” has three variations depending on the factory and color of ink used and "Pan Handle Scrap" has two variations based on the color of ink and paper stock. This makes for a total of seven variations with some differences between series 1 and series 2. Also, a blank-back variation is known to exist for some of the cards. These are speculated to be salesman samples or incomplete sheets.
I’m boring myself with this post so I’m going to jump to my recommendations using these two sets as examples. There are three bits of information important in classifying and listing tobacco cards (IMHO). (1) Series Title, (2) Company Name (3) Advertised Brand.
If a series is produced by different companies (as in the Industries of States Series), two separate set entries are added to the database. The Industries of States Series would look like this.
G.W. Gail & Ax Industries of States (N117b)
W. Duke, Sons & Co Industries of States (N117a)
If a series is produced by one company but contains advertising for several tobacco brands, it should be listed as one set with “parallel” sets for each brand advertised. The Heroes of History / Men of History series would look like this:
American Tobacco Company Heroes of History / Men of History (T68)
This “set” would have four related sets (1) Royal Bengals (2) Miners Extra (3) Pan Handle Scrap (4) Natural Leaf Scrap.
If a brand has variations, they are listed as VAR within the brand set even if that variation applies to the whole set. This occurs with the brands Royal Bengals and Pan Handle Scrap in the Heroes of History / Men of History Set.
Looking for guidance, advice, or opinions.
My two-cents is worth slightly more than a penny.
-- Chad --