The National Cigarette & Tobacco Company of New York City took on Buck Duke and his American Tobacco Company trust during the 1890s. This small manufacturer successfully used innovative advertising to tweak Duke's nose. A large outdoor sign for Admiral and Opera Lights Cigarettes was placed high above NYC's Broadway at 23rd Street. Each evening from 6 pm until midnight the sign was lit with Thomas Edison's new invention, the electric light bulb. Recently developed celluloid pinback buttons were given away with High Admiral cigarette packets. These small buttons and button easels featured the popular "Yellow Kid" comic strip character. A midget nicknamed Admiral Dot damned the torpedoes as part of an Admiral cigarette display at Chicago's Colombian Exposition. Pretty girls were hired to ride around on bicycles adorned with Admiral signs. All of these interesting merchandising techniques created a demand for National's Admiral and High Admiral Cigarette brands. Royal Sweets and Yellow Kid Cigarettes were also briefly marketed by this young and upstart company. Tobacco is a cut-throat business, and cigarette wholesalers stopped stocking National's different brands when cigarette giant Buck Duke leaned on them.

In 1895 artist R. F. Outcault drew his "Yellow Kid" as one of several New York City street urchins in a cartoon strip named "Hogan's Alley." The small black and white cartoons were originally printed in humor magazines aimed at adults, and in the New York World newspaper. The Yellow Kid became so popular that he was eventually printed in color in both The World plus arch rival, The New York Journal. The kid's bright yellow gown eventually gave us the distasteful phrase, 'yellow journalism'. There are a total of 154 different Yellow Kid buttons in two series available for eagle eyed collectors to find. The Yellow Kid Cigarette packet is extremely rare, and I'm really, really sorry that I don't have one to share with you. The cigarette pack's graphics pictures the little kid holding a beer mug.