1910 Old Put Cigar Set (E98)

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Old Put Cigar (E98)
Year	1910
Size	1 1/2″ x 2 3/4″
Images	Color
Type	Candy/Caramel and Tobacco
Number in Set	30

1910 Old Put Cigar (E98) Overview

The E98 Anonymous set of 30 is a bit of an unknown as the distributor and maker of the set has never been found. It looks like a standard caramel card issue but who it belongs to remains a mystery. It is believed the cards were produced in 1910.

But while the cards were anonymous, some of them have a known advertiser of sorts. The backs of some of these E98 cards were stamped by a cigar manufacturer, Old Put.

Backs of some cards have their ‘Old Put 5 ct. CIGAR’ stamp on them.

These cards are much rarer than the standard E98s and sell for a premium because of that. They are no different than the E98s but simply have the overprint stamp on the back.

Overprints were often a way for companies to get in on the action of trading cards without forking over the expense to create their own set. They simply collected cards elsewhere and added their own stamp to them. Little did those companies know that the cards would be considered variations of sorts and generally be sold for more than the regular versions of cards.

These cards also present an interesting classification issue. Because Old Put was a cigar company, it can be considered a tobacco card (T-Cards). However, the cards are actually considered to be produced by a candy/caramel company, which would make them E-Cards. They can be considered both and, as such, I have added them to both the T-Card and E-Card sections.

Two key features of the set are present. First, the Cy Young card is actually a picture of Irv Young, leading to some uncertainty about if this can truly be called a Cy Young card. This was also an issue in the E97 C.A. Briggs set as well, which used the same image. Second, some players have red backgrounds, while others have orange, and some others have blue or green. Several players (such as Honus Wagner pictured) also have more than one colored background. A collection of the regular E98 cards were also part of the famous Black Swamp Find.

One notable error is that Fred Tenney’s name is misspelled ‘Tenny.’

1910 Old Put Cigar (E98) Checklist

30 cards are in the set making it similar to other E-card releases. Below is the complete checklist of the set as identified on the backs of the cards. This list does not take into account all of the color variations found. When one does that, there are about 100 different cards.

Of course, what isn’t known is how many of these different cards ‘Old Put’ stamped. The checklist below is theoretical one since they stamped E98 cards and this is the E98 checklist.