Sports Collecibles ~
MURAD CIGARETTE CARDS

By Roy Nuhn

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, January 2010

Murad was but one of dozens o£ new brands of cigarettes to be sold in this country shortly after the turn of the last century. They offered something new and were so well received that almost all of the older brands were driven out of business. The new element? I Turkish tobacco leaves.

Before 1880, people hand-rolled their cigarettes and used American tobacco exclusively. Then James Bonsack invented a machine to make cigarettes automatically - still using domestic tobacco - and almost overnight the industry and the public's smoking habits changed.

In 1889, 2 1/2 billion cigarettes were sold. A few years later, on the eve of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that found the American Tobacco Company, a cigarette monopoly owned by the Duke family, guilty of violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the public was consuming 10 billion cigarettes a year. Such sales attracted the attention of many people, among them a large group of Greeks newly immigrated to the United States. They began making and marketing cigarettes containing tobacco leaves imported from Turkey. The new, exotic-tasting cigarettes caught on, and soon they flooded the country with their strange sounding names - names like Fatima, Fez, Sultan, Mecca, and of course, Murad.

Murad was taken from the name used by five sultans of the Ottoman Empire. They had reigned at various times from 1319 to 1876, the last, Murad V, ruled for but a brief three-month period.

The bitter fighting between the newcomers, who were reshaping the American cigarette industry, and the old-timers, with their traditional blends, over consumer loyalty was most evident in the advertising campaigns of the time. One result of this intense rivalry for a bigger market share was the revival of an old 19th-century selling gimmick - insert and premium picture cards as giveaways.

Murad, in particular, made great use of such cards in the cigarette ad wars that raged in the early years of the 20th century. During this era, it issued several sets of cards. These included American and Canadian views, National Girls, Toasts, and Sports. One card was placed inside each packet of cigarettes except for the larger sized premiums, which were available only through the mail by sending in cigarette coupons.

Far and away, their most successful offering was the 150-card "College Series" that showcased collegiate sports (six sets of 25 cards each). These sets of college athletics in the years just before World War I are fascinating bits of sports memorabilia, and they are of interest to a number of collectors, including those specializing in advertising, cards, sports, tobacco, and American illustration.

J. R. Burdick, in his classic American Card Catalog (Nostalgia Press, 1967), designated the six-set group as number T51. Measuring 5x8 inches, each card, with a few exceptions, is of a different college, with pennant and crest shown, and a sport being played on campus. The historical scenes of early 20th- century athletic competition include football, baseball, basketball, and numerous field and track events.

Colleges represented run the entire spectrum of higher education. Large and small schools alike were part of the series. These ranged from the University of Michigan, Syracuse, and Amherst College to Swarthmore I Williams College and the University of Denver.

Unlike most other Murad cigarette cardsl the sports series was never used as inserts, but as premiums gotten through the mail box. Each card was given away by the company upon receipt of 15 Murad Cigarette packet coupons at their Jersey City, New Jersey, office. Since there were 150 cards to be gathered, a determined collector or his relatives and friends had to smoke more than 2000 packs of cigarettes to enable him or her to complete the series.

Most likely, though, very few people tried to do anything more than collect cards of their favorite sports or colleges. There was duplication of sports on various cards, such as rowing on the Yale and Cornell cards, making specialization very likely.

Each set of 25 carried a numerical designation, such as 1-25 or 26-50. The backside of all cards carried ordering instructions and a complete list of all cards in that set, as well as their specific numbers. Collectors were requested to "order by number only." And they had until June 30, 1911 to get in all requests. Since the offer must have run at least two or three years, most likely the Murad "Sport Series" was begun about 1908 or 1909.

Not too surprising, considering the huge quantities that must have been produced, large numbers of Murad premium cards have survived. Quite likely, though, the only complete aggregation of all 150 cards is located in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses Burdick's fabled collection.

Prices for the Murad sports cards are" in the $15 to $25 range and sellers can usually be found within sports and ephemera hobbies. Illustrated are some of these fascinating cards.

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