Posted 9 years ago
SpiritBear
(813 items)
I think these were put into cigarette packs in 1930s Germany.
I went to a pretty over-priced, low-quality Estate Sale and found about 80 Hitler stamps mixed in with many Nazi era commemoratives, semi-postals, postals, and stamps of occupied German territories. As I collect European stamps, I picked them up.
Several of these cards were in them too, along with a random set of Native American-themed stamps.
Anyone know more on these? I got them and maybe 150 stamps for $7.
See the other post here:
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/190284-german-cigarette-cards-post-two
I'm truly surprised that a cigarette company was allowed to do this, as much as he hated smoking.
All's game in the quest for fame.
They were meant to be part of a book, likely "Kampf um's Dritte Reich". I've had a complete book in the past and it really is an interesting set. Here is a link to give you an idea of what the book would be: http://www.usmbooks.com/kampf_dritte_reich.html
Thank you for the comment and link.
The site says Nazi cigarettes album. How do those work together? Did people try to 'collect them all' like some do with other kinds of cards?
I believe the idea was to have people collect the cards in order to fill the albums. The Nazi party had an anti-tobacco platform, but producing the cards allowed the larger tobacco manufacturers to remain in business. I've read somewhere that small sets could have been obtained by collecting coupons from cigarette packs/cartons. I would think completing one of the albums would probably require mailing in coupons because it seems unlikely someone would be able to collect at least one copy of each of the nearly 200 cards.
Thank you!