The earliest known baseball cards date back to the late 1800s, when cigarette and tobacco companies began including small card images of popular baseball players aspremiums or incentives inside their packs of cigarettes and tobacco products. While these early baseball cards differed greatly from the modern cardboard collectibles we know today, they represent the genesis of what would become a multibillion-dollar baseball card industry and hobby.
The earliest documented baseball cards come from the late 1880s and were produced by the American Tobacco Company and Allen & Ginter Tobacco Company. American Tobacco’s 1886-1887 cigarette premium cards included images of star players Cap Anson, Dan Brouthers, Jim O’Rourke, and others from the time period printed on small pieces of thin cardboard. Allen & Ginter also issued tobacco premium cards in 1886 and 1887, though these early sets are extremely rare today with only a small number believed to still exist. The backs of these early cards were blank with no player statistics or biographical information included.
In 1890, three new tobacco companies – Goodwin & Company, Mayo Cut Plug Tobacco, and Carhart & Company – joined American Tobacco and Allen & Ginter in including baseball card inserts among their tobacco products. Of an estimated 3,500 different tobacco and cigarette baseball cards printed in the 1890s, fewer than 1,000 are believed to still survive today in collectible condition given the fragility of the cards and lack of protective cases or albums available at the time for storage. Notable players featured in 1890s baseball cards include Roger Connor, Ed Delahanty, Hugh Duffy, Tim Keefe, and Hughie Jennings.
Unlike modern cardboard cards, these earliest baseball cards were very small, typically around 2 inches by 1 inch in size. They were made of thin paper or pasteboard and featured grainy black-and-white printed lithographic images of individual players. The fronts of the cards showed images of players in uniform from the waist up in posed portrait or action shooting stances. Occasionally, team logos or sponsors would appear in the background. The backs of 1890s cards were always totally blank with no statistics, biographies, or other information included about the players depicted.
While today’s baseball cards come securely packaged in wax wrappers or cardboard boxes, the earliest tobacco premium cards were simply loose inserts among the tobacco products. They were not organized into standardized sets with statistical information either. As such, completing full sets or runs of 1890s baseball tobacco cards seemed nearly impossible at the time and few attempted it. For baseball card collectors and companies in the late 19th century, the true value lay in interesting images as premium incentives rather than the players’ statistics or an organized collection.
Another challenge of the 1890s baseball cards was the uncertain longevity and durability of the materials used versus modern coated cardboard. Paper and pasteboard were prone to damage from humidity, sunlight exposure, and general handling over the decades before modern archival storage methods became widespread. As a result, well-preserved examples from the first tobacco baseball card issues are considerably more rare than even the scarce cardboard cards of the following decades which could better withstand the test of time.
By the late 1890s, cigarette cards had become immensely popular premium incentives included in nearly every pack of smokes sold. Companies vied for popular sports heroes, entertainers, and other notable figures of the time to feature on their cards. Around 1898, several sets began including more information on the back such as career statistics for players. This marked the beginnings of more complete, organized baseball card sets with statistics and biographies similar to what collectors desire today. The actual cardboard cards that we recognize in modern form did not come into common use until the early 1900s.
While today’s highly organized and durable cardboard baseball cards seem a far cry from the fragile paper and pasteboard inserts of the 1800s, those earliest tobacco premium images laid the groundwork for what would become a beloved American hobby. The rarity and scarcity of surviving examples from baseball’s earliest card issues make them exceptionally valuable to dedicated collectors today seeking a link to the genesis of this enduring pop culture phenomenon. Though crude by today’s standards, those first tobacco baseball cards represent a pioneering effort to popularize America’s pastime through affordable print inserts celebrating the sport’s earliest superstars.
