The Crescent Tobacco Company of New York made Turkish Guards beginning 1901. From a third to one half of the Egyptian style cigarettes made in the United States were sold with a cork tip. The thin sheets of cork used for these cigarettes came from the bark of the lower branches of cork oak trees from southern Europe and North Africa. Only trees that were fifty or more years old could provide the delicate cork needed for the fragile sheets used to make cigarette tips. Adding the cork tip was the last step in the manufacturing process.