Collecting Cigarette Sport Cards
Cigarette cards — also known as tobacco cards — sit at the crossroads of ephemera, memorabilia, and nostalgia, belonging to the broader family of trading or trade cards.
The hobby of collecting them is called cartophily, a pursuit that began when tobacco manufacturers first started using cards to promote their products in 1879.
In the Edwardian era, these small works of art became immensely popular, especially among sports fans. Sets featuring football, cricket, and horse racing were the stars of the time — beautifully printed and highly collectible.
Horse racing in particular was a favourite theme, with cards showcasing the famous jockeys and racehorses of the day.
(Illustration: A jockey riding a Dwyer Bros. horse from Allen & Ginter’s 1888 N22: “Racing Colors of the World” series.)
While finding cards from popular sports is relatively easy, collectors chasing rarer sets — such as those depicting wrestling or other niche events — face a more thrilling challenge.
Cigarette cards evolved from the illustrated trade cards given out by French shopkeepers in the 1840s. The idea crossed the Atlantic to the United States, where tobacco companies quickly saw their marketing potential.
Early cards were handed out separately by tobacconists, but before long they were slipped directly into cigarette packets — ensuring every puff came with a picture.
Advertisement:
Allen & Ginter cigarette cards
Starting in 1879, the U.S. tobacco firm Allen & Ginter began including colorful cards in its cigarette packs replacing the piece of cardboard used to stiffen the paper cigarette pack.
These cards depicted actresses, boxers (such as Jack Dempsey, pictured), Native American chiefs, national flags, wild animals, and baseball players.
These early issues are widely regarded as the first true cigarette cards, marking the dawn of the collecting craze.
You may wonder how boxer Jack Dempsey earned himself a cigarette card in 1887, when he was born in 1895? The card refers to World Middleweight Champion between 1884 and 1891, Nonpareil Jack Dempsey (born John Kelly), while the world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926 was the more commonly known Jack Dempsey.
In 1887, Allen & Ginter launched its now-iconic “World’s Champions” series (N28 and N29), the first nationally distributed baseball cards of the tobacco era.
Printed using vibrant chromolithography, the “World’s Champions” set showcased not only baseball stars but also athletes from a range of sports and celebrated public figures.
Players such as Adrian “Cap” Anson and Mike “King” Kelly became among America’s first sporting celebrities, their fame amplified by these miniature works of art.
N22: Racing Colors of the World (scroll up for an example) is an 1888 collection of 50 chromolithograph tobacco cards by the Allen & Ginter cigarette company, which depicted the racing colors and silks of jockeys from around the world.
Advertisement:
Just a few years later, in 1890, Allen & Ginter merged into what became the American Tobacco Company, cementing its role as a pioneer in both cigarette production and the birth of sports memorabilia.
In Britain, cigarette cards took a little longer to catch on, with the first sets probably appearing in the late 1880s.
However, the Tobacco War (1900-1902) – a period of intense competition between American and British tobacco companies – caused an enormous increase in the number of cigarette cards produced in Britain.
By about 1900, the hobby of collecting the cards was firmly established.
The first ‘golden age’ of cartophily, or cigarette-card collecting, lasted throughout Edward VII’s reign and into World War 1, until a paper shortage in 1917 put an end to production for several years.
During this period, the vast majority of smokers were men, and the illustrations on cards usually reflected male interests – beautiful women, military subjects and various sports. British sporting cigarette cards naturally concentrated on the most popular games in the country.
Football or cricket appeared on about 70 percent of the Edwardian sets. Horse racing and other riding events came a poor third, with about 10 percent.
This, however, is still about three times as many as were issued for each of the next most popular sports – boxing and golf.
Other sporting subjects that were of limited interest at the time are now highly prized. For example, cards showing wrestling are rare and valuable.
Other sports covered on British cards include polo, athletics, coursing, swimming, fishing, ju jitsu and billiards.
On American cards, baseball is by far the most featured sport.
Although most series were devoted to one sport, some covered a wide range, often including obscure pursuits of limited appeal, such as the techniques of tent pegging.
Advertisement:
1890 Goodwin & Co. “Old Judge Cigarette Factory”
Goodwin & Company, a New York tobacco manufacturer founded before the American Civil War, became famous for its cigarette brands Gypsy Queen and Old Judge, as well as for pioneering the use of trading cards to promote tobacco products. Beginning in 1887, Goodwin issued some of the first baseball cards, initially using sepia-toned photographic prints before moving to colorful chromolithographs.
A rare c.1890 N174 Old Judge Cigarette Factory card featuring T. Busst surfaced at auction, representing one of the few known Australian issues from Goodwin & Co.’s legendary Old Judge series.
Shown here and graded SGC 20 (Fair 1.5), it’s the only known example of this card in the SGC census, underscoring its extreme rarity. This card sold for $46.00 at Heritage Auctions in 2015.
Little is known about T. Busst himself, though contemporary newspaper reports note his victory in the Melbourne Bicycle Club’s annual race at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on November 23, 1890.
The company’s most notable sets include Old Judge (1887–90), the first major baseball card series with over 2,000 images; Gypsy Queen (1887), which reused the same imagery under a different brand; Goodwin Champions (1888), featuring 50 athletes in full color; and Old Judge Cabinets (1888–89), large-format photographs redeemable via coupons.
In 2011, Upper Deck revived the Goodwin Champions line, continuing the company’s legacy of showcasing athletes across multiple sports—bridging 19th-century tobacco cards and the modern collector’s market.
Advertisement:
Collecting Cricket Cards
The American Tobacco Company and its affiliate British American Tobacco (BAT) were major producers of collectible cigarette cards in the early 20th century, using sports stars to promote their brands.
Notable series included “Cameo English Cricketers” (1901) — a set of 14 badges featuring leading players — and the “English Cricketers” series (1926), which highlighted figures like A. W. Carr and Hon. F. S. G. Calthorpe.
Several sets showing close-ups of cricketers were produced during this period, notably by Taddy and by Wills. The 1903 issue by Wills, showing Australian cricketers in action, wrongly depicts the well-known player E Jones bowling with his left arm.
Other tobacco firms followed the lead of BAT and Wills. John Player & Sons produced the whimsical Cricketers’ Caricatures series in 1926; Gallaher issued Famous Jockeys (1936) and Horse Racing Scenes (1938); Ogdens released a 1926 Cricketers set of 50 cards; and Churchman celebrated motorsport and racing heroes with its 1939 Kings of Speed series.
“1939 Kings of Speed” is a 50-card cigarette card set issued by W.A. & A.C. Churchman in 1939, featuring portraits of famous speed and racing figures from various sports. Notable individuals included in the set are aviators such as Francesco Agello and Alexander Henshaw, racing drivers including George Eyston and Rudolf Caracciola, and athletes like Jesse Owens and Bluey Wilkinson.
Together, these sets chart the golden age of tobacco card collecting — a time when cricketers, jockeys, and other sporting icons became miniature advertising stars tucked inside every cigarette pack.
Advertisement:
Cigarette cards – Horses and Riders
Of all the cigarette cards featuring horses and riders, the most popular are those connected with racing. A few show races in progress, but ‘portraits’ of horses and/or jockeys were generally more suitable subjects for reproduction on a small card.
Cards entitled ‘Horses of Today’, issued in 1906 by Wills for Capstan, Vice Regal and Havelock cigarettes, show jockeys sitting on racehorses in rural settings. On the back of each card are details of the horse, including its breeding, age and race wins. Other sets depict similar scenes, but with the jockeys standing beside their mounts.
Ogden’s 1906 set of 50 cards of ‘Owners Racing Colours and jockeys’ shows close-ups of jockeys in the racing colours of the owners for whom they rode. In a 1914 25-card set of the same name (but with a comma after the word ‘Owners’), each card shows a portrait of the owner alongside the jockey.
Toddy & Co, one of the smaller tobacco manufacturers, issued two sets entitled ‘Famous Jockeys’ in 1911. They are very similar, but one set has a narrow gold herder and the other does not. The cards without the border are somewhat rarer than those with it and therefore are more expensive.
W.D. & H.O. Wills
W.D. & H.O. Wills, founded in Bristol, England, was the first British company to mass-produce cigarettes and a pioneer in including cigarette cards inside its packaging. The firm introduced several iconic tobacco brands — Bristol (1871), Three Castles and Gold Flake (1878), and the hugely successful Woodbine (1888). It later became one of the 13 founding members of Imperial Tobacco, which went on to co-found British American Tobacco in 1902.
W.D. & H.O. Wills was a creative force in collectible advertising. It first inserted cards into cigarette packs in 1887, launching its first full series, Ships and Sailors, in 1895. Over the decades, Wills produced hundreds of themed sets, from Aviation (1910) and British Butterflies (1927) to Famous Golfers (1930) and Air Raid Precautions (1938).
Among W D & H O Wills most sought-after issues are their sports series, including cricket (1901–1910), football (1902–1939), rugby union (1902, 1929), and Australian rules football (1905). Today, Wills cards remain prized collectibles — miniature time capsules of Britain’s sporting and social history.
W D & H O Wills issued an unusual 25-piece set in 1914. When correctly arranged, the cards formed a complete panorama of Derby Day at Epsom racecourse.
Advertisement:
Sniders & Abrahams
Sniders & Abrahams, founded in Melbourne in 1886, holds the distinction of being Australia’s first mass-producer of cigarettes.
Beginning in 1904, the company added a new kind of treasure to its tobacco tins — collectible cigarette cards. Among these, their Australian Rules football series have become especially prized by collectors, capturing early sporting heroes in sepia tones and cementing the brand’s place in both tobacco and sporting history.
Sporting Medley
On football and cricket cards – the two most popular sports – players from various teams were featured in each set, as these had to appeal to people in different parts of Britain.
Many people interested in collecting whole sets of footballers prefer the coloured art cards to the black and white photographic types so that they can see the colours worn by the various teams featured.
One of the best Edwardian examples is Ogden’s 1908 set of close-ups of 50 ‘Famous Footballers’.
For fans attending matches, Ogden’s produced novelty cards in eye-catching team colours; the cards tapered and were designed to be worn in a buttonhole or on a hat.
Many other sports appeared on cigarette cards, but the less popular ones may be found on only a small number of cards in mixed sporting sets.
For example, few cards were issued on tennis or cycling during this period, although these sports became more popular in later years.
Advertisement:
Novelty Sports Cards
Most cigarette cards are about 6.4 x 3.2cm (2 1/2 x l¼ inches), but there are many exceptions. A few were smaller, and there is a range of larger sizes going up to the then standard postcard size of 14 x 9cm (5 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches) and beyond.
Not all were rectangular and, while they were all referred to as cards, some were in fact made from other materials, including plastic, metal and fabrics such as silk.
Novelty cards like these include the 1901 sets of small, circular, celluloid ‘buttons’, produced by the American Tobacco Company, depicting cricketers and jockeys. These had pins on the back and could be worn as badges or fixed to a special souvenir card.
In 1897, BAT issued the “Famous Cricketers” badge set in Australia, featuring legends such as Ranjitsinhji. This complete set of 1897 British American Tobacco “Famous Cricketers” badges issued in Australia sold for $2,000.
Cigarette Card Collector Notes
Many people are attracted to cigarette cards primarily for the pictures, but there is also much pleasure and instruction to be gained from the ‘fine print’. The typography is often an impressive feat of design in miniature and the captions contain valuable information as well as a great deal of entertaining trivia. For the serious collector no detail is too small to notice.
When they first appeared, cigarette cards were often used by schoolboys for card games. These games usually involved flicking the cards and such cards now have little value because of their dirty condition and damaged corners.
At the same time there were serious collectors who treasured their cards and stored them carefully in albums. So most sets, even many of the early ones, are still available in good or even mint condition.
Cigarette companies often issued albums in which to collect sets. Once the cards were mounted in an album, their backs could not be seen, so any information printed there was generally repeated in the album, alongside the spaces for the cards.
Sets can be kept in their original albums or stored in modern albums with clear plastic pages that allow the backs to he seen as well as the fronts.
Alternatively, sets or other groups of cards may be framed for display on a wall. It is more economical to do the framing yourself, using a kit purchased from one of the major cigarette card dealers.
The frames come in several sizes, with mounts ready cut to take various numbers and sizes of cards. The mounts hold the cards without damage, and the frames are glazed on both sides so that the backs of the cards can be inspected.
One of the most important factors determining the price of cigarette cards is their condition. The first and last cards of a set which has been stored in numerical order in a wad held together by an elastic band often become damaged.
For this reason, the first and last cards in a series are generally more difficult to find in pristine condition. Most serious collectors, however, are interested in buying complete sets, ideally in their original albums, rather than individual cards.
Sport Cigarette Cards Dealer Tips:
Damaged cards have little value, although the subject matter may appeal.
If you are offered an apparently rare card at a bargain price, beware – it could be a modern reprint of little value. Look for a ‘reprint’ warning on the back or any sign that one has been removed.
Wrong captions or spelling mistakes are regarded merely as interesting oddities and, contrary to what happens with postage stamps, do not usually command a premium.
Related stories
Collecting Rookie Cards: Auction Records and Cards for Beginners
Babe Ruth Baseball Card Sells for Over $4 Million
Visit the Topps store on Amazon
Advertisement:
