Tobacco Road all 36 boxcars, TT scale printed reefer sides

Description

Tobacco Road boxcars, printed 40' reefer sides. 36 different pairs of boxcar reefer sides printed on 72 cardstock sides full color, a pair of each in "new" reefer yellow (not weathered) to make 36 different boxcar reefers from the billboard reefer era with a Tuscan brown fascia line across the top. If you don't want to make your own boxcars or kits, simply glue them onto plastic boxcars with working trucks and couplers. It is recommended that you use an X-acto knife or razor, though I have had good results simply using sharp scissors. There are 36 different Quaker City Refrigerator Express reefers. They are:
#1000 "Infanta Cigars" with a portrait of the Infanta Lady on the official logo
#1001 "Smoke White Cat Cigar" with Puss In Boots type image on logo
#1002 "Quail Cigars" (quail logo)
#1003 "Alcazar" (horse logo) M & N Cigar Mfgrs, Inc, Cleveland, Ohio
#1004 "BIG WOLF" with a portrait of the big bad wolf himself on the official logo, James W. Smith Cigar Co.
#1005 "LAGRESTA" with the beautiful Lagresta lady on logo
#1006 "DUTCH MAID" (strangely familiar logo) Holland Palmas "Beats Em All"
#1007 "SUN MAID" (another strangely familiar logo) Cigars
#1008 "RED KAMEL" Turkish - Egyptian Cigarettes
#1009 "MURAD The Turkish Cigarette" with Cleopatra flanked by two dog-head guards on logo, S. ANARGYROS, P. LorillardCo., Successor
#1010 "Egyptian OASIS Cigarettes" with logo of camel caravan arriving at palm trees in desert
#1011 "CROCODILE Egyptian Cigarettes" Miltiades Melachrino - Manufacturer "No Connection With Other Firms"
#1012 "MAVRIDES CIGARETTES" imported from The Fashionable Cigarette Company of Alex S. Mavrides in Cairo, Egypt
#1013 "AFRICORA" cigars
#1014 "
ADAM & EVE
" Cigars “Born In Paradise, Made In Tampa”
#1015 "Forget Me-Not" Cigars
#1016 "Black Hawk" Cigars “Chief of the Broadleafs
#1017 "
THE CLOWN
" cigars, W.F. Gabrio Co., Manufacturers “Laugh and the world laughs with you”
#1018 “NORDACS” Florida Cigar Company, Inc., Quincy, FLA
#1019 “CLOWN Balanced Blend Cigarettes” Axton-Fisher Tobacco Co
#1020 “RIP VAN WINKLE” cigars
#1021 “SHERLOCK HOLMES” cigars
#1022 “WALT WHITMAN” cigars
#1023 “TOBACOS SURERIORES” cigars
#1024 “MOOSARIANA” CIGARS, I have no idea who Moosariana was but she looks prettier than her name…
#1025 “TOM MIX” with a portrait of the early movie cowboy star
#1026 “CHECKERS” cigars, with a checkers game being played at a gentlemans club “Mild & Mellow”
#1027 “SONNY BOY” cigars
#1028 “CLITUS” cigars, with an Olympic footrace
#1029 “MARK TWAIN” Wolf Brothers Cigar Co “Known To Everyone – Liked By All” Twain refused to personally endorse anything, even his favorite cigars. So when he died in 1910, Wolf Brothers promptly came out with Mark Twain Cigars in his honor
#1030 “DICK CUSTER” cigar “Holds You Up” Dick Custer appears to have been a famous bandito, not the Indian-fighting general…
#1031 “RED CLOUD” cigar, in tribute to the Indian chief
#1032 “RIGOLETTO” cigars, “All Fine Havana Tobaccos”
#1033 “MADAME BUTTERFLY” cigars, picturing her looking out at the American warship in Japan
#1034 “REX AGUILLA” cigars, with an American eagle logo
#1035 “RUTALIS” cigars, a tribute to brave Arab horsemen
I don't smoke so I don't know much about these companies, except the 4th one, which was named for a popular racehorse named Alcazar. The cigar box label even gave stats and parentage of the horse. Tobacco companies in the 1800s used an expensive process called lithography. By the turn of the century, many printers had moved to cheaper ways to print labels, and old lithographs that were no longer in use became "clip art" for new labels. Thus the familiar "Dutch Maid" was pressed back into service for a cleanser sold by Cudahy Meat Packing company with the new slogan "Chases Dirt." The Sun Maid logo is even more different. The first Sun Maid Raisins logo featured a little girl bringing a tray of grapes from the vineyard, not a grown woman carrying a tray of tobacco, though one may have inspired the other logo.
In July 1913, Richard J. Reynolds paid Salvatore Ragona of New York City three hundred dollars for his rights, goodwill, the die, and 5,000 manufactured Red Kamel cigarettes. Reynolds needed a clear title to the Camel brandname, and attorneys from a New York law firm had told him that this was the only use of the name for a tobacco product. The Red Kamel Cigarette was first produced by the Imported Tobacco Manufacturing Company in 1908. In 1911, when this small firm failed, the receivers sold Red Kamel to Ragona. In December 1913, Reynolds learned that another Red Kamel Cigarette was being sold in the Jewish districts of Philadelphia. This Red Kamel was made by J. Friedberg of the Turco-Russian Cigarette Company, who had also purchased the brand from Ragona. To protect the Camel name, Reynolds needed to buy Red Kamel a second time. He paid Friedberg three thousand dollars for his title to Red Kamel, plus 15,000 boxes and 5,000 cartons
.
If you look close, the top of the Mavrides logo is in hyroglyphics! The early cigarette companies tried hard to look as fancy as cigars, using cigarettes or tobacco imported from the Middle East. In the Adam & Eve logo, Eve is leading Adam by the hand to a tree and pointing to an apple
. A strategically positioned vine covers the naughty bits.
A Japanese businessman was so moved by the tragedy Madame Butterfly that he bought the movie rights after seeing the play even though he didn’t speak English and hadn’t understood any of the dialogue, though her suicide at the end when the American leaves sorta speaks for itself…
By the way, if you do not smoke tobacco, you have a 95% chance of dying of something other than lung cancer, but if you smoke you only have a 90% chance of dying of something other than lung cancer.
Quaker City Refrigerator Express Line (QREX) was founded by George Woodsmith, founder of Standard Equipment / Standard Tank Car Co, the world's largest producer of railroad tank cars before & after WW1. He was a former employee of General American Tank Car Corp (GATX / GARE), which built most of Quaker City's 6000 plus reefer, tank & stockcars for them. General American bought out Quaker City in 1928 and changed QREX reporting marks to GARE in the mid-1930s. As of 1927, Quaker City owned 6500 cars of which 2500 were reefers. Some companies that leased Quaker City and GARE cars, such as "Libby's" and "Berkshire Ham & Bacon" kept the same car number but used their own reporting marks. LMN&L for Libby's and MAHX for Miller And Hart's Berkshire brand. General American also bought out Union Refrigerator Transit Co (URTC), so a number of Quaker City's 40-foot reefers were built by URTC. Both GARE and URTC used all-metal "fish-belly" underframes with their wood reefers, which had wood sides, ends and roofs painted Tuscan brownish-red. Quaker City and General American painted as many billboard reefers for their customers as possible between February and July of 1934, when billboard reefers were outlawed by the FDR administration but previously painted cars were allowed to remain in service as is.
The Red Ball company of Oregon (no relation) supplied train-car kits 1939-1959 using car sides printed on balsawood so the modeler would not have to mess with decals or dry transfers. Strombecker was another producer of the period, using cardstock printed car sides assembled onto simple wood kits. Simply cut balsa or basswood to the size of the ends and then glue on the printed cardstock sides. A one-sheet of their instructions will be included with your purchase, or you could just glue them to the sides of an existing 40' boxcar with Elmer's glue. Strombecker suggested putting a 3rd piece of wood in the center to keep the sides from bowing, while Red Ball used solid wood sides. For N or Z scale, NMRA suggests simply cutting an entire piece of balsa wood to the size of a boxcar including the sloped roof.
Or buy old boxcars on Ebay and glue these sides onto the sides, or even build your own boxcars and glue them to boxcar frames that come up for sale from time to time on Ebay with trucks and couplers already attached. Ordinary Elmer white glue or Testors wood cement should work just fine and give you plenty of time to position each side just right, these are not stickers. You could even buy plastic boxcar or reefer doors from another Ebay vender and glue them to the center for more of a 3-d look, and/or attach metal-type scale ladders to the side. These would fit right in with any steam or early diesel-era layout.
Note: shipping is about the same rate for US, Canada and world-wide!
If you want other sets, ask for combined shipping so I can put them on a single ebay invoice to wave shipping on the other sets.
>>> I wanted you to know how pleased I was with the sets of sides I purchased, I had 7 Hawthorne village Budweiser boxcars that I never used because they looked too cheap. I removed the grab irons, ladders, doors and sanded the sides. I glued on the sets of sides, put the details back on, added ice hatches on the roof and now have "brand new" reefers that look pretty good. They "pop out" in a train because of their yellow sides and colorful pictures. Very happy with them, and hopefully more modelers will try your product, you have my vote
- tedewright