Beginning in 1875, cards depicting actresses, baseball players, Indian chiefs, and boxers were issued by the U.S.-based Allen and Ginter tobacco company. These are considered to be some of the first cigarette cards. Other tobacco companies such as Goodwin & Co. soon followed suit. They first emerged in the U.S., then the UK, then, eventually, in many other countries.
In the UK, W.D. & H.O. Wills in 1887 were one of the first companies to include advertising cards with their cigarettes, but it was John Player & Sons in 1893 that produced one of the first general interest sets ‘Castles and Abbeys’. Thomas Ogden soon followed in 1894 and in 1895, Wills produced their first set ‘Ships and Sailors’, followed by ‘Cricketers' in 1896. In 1906, Ogden’s produced a set of football cards depicting footballers in their club colours, in one of the first full-colour sets.
Each set of cards typically consisted of 25 or 50 related subjects, but series of over 100 cards per issue are known. Popular themes were 'beauties' (famous actresses, film stars and models), sporters (in the U.S. mainly baseball, in the rest of the world mainly football and cricket), nature, military heroes and uniforms, heraldry and city views.
Today, for example, sports and military historians study these cards for details on uniform design.
Some very early cigarette cards were printed on silk which was then attached to a paper backing. They were discontinued in order to save paper during World War II, and never fully reintroduced thereafter.
The system devised to codify 19th Century American tobacco issues has its origin in the ‘American Card Catalog’ (ACC), written by Jefferson Burdick. Burdick listed the American Tobacco Cards in one section, broken down by companies that issued the card series and by the types of cards. The 19th Century issues were prefixed with ‘N’ (N1-N694) and the 20th with ‘T’. (T1-T235).
This 1939 set is your standard 1930s UK tobacco release. Like many others, it includes a total of 50 cards and has white borders with biographies on the back. The set was issued by Churchman, which was a cigarette brand under the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland. Churchman was one of the more popular brands that distributed cards and you’ll see a gaggle of sets that bear their name.
The Kings of Speed name is an appropriate one for this multi-sport set. Essentially, we’ve got a collection of ‘fast’ subjects from a variety of occupations.
Track and field star Jesse Owens is the set’s headliner here. Owens took home four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, winning the 100m, 200m, long jump, and 4×100 relay.
Owens isn’t the only popular card in the set, though. Track and field is something highlighted in the set and that subset also includes famed distance runner Paavo Nurmi. Nurmi captured a total of nine gold medals and three silvers spanning three different Olympic games.
But in terms of popularity, the only real candidate for the second-place award behind Owens is a card featuring Howard Hughes is a close second in terms of popularity. Hughes is in the set for his aviation skills and his ‘Round the World’ trip in record time (three days, 19 hours, and 17 minutes) is cited on the back. Howard had an average speed, including stoppages, of 163 miles per hour.
We believe that all our listings are 100%
Original and Authentic unless otherwise noted. They are all
covered by a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, if
for whatever reason you are not happy with your purchase we will exchange it,
replace it, discount it or return it for a full refund.