The year 1870 marked an important early milestone in the development of baseball cards. While tobacco cards depicting baseball players had been issued sporadically in the late 1860s, the 1870 season was when the first complete set of cards dedicated solely to baseball was published and widely distributed. This helped popularize the young sport of baseball and familiarized the American public with prominent professional players of the day.
The cards were issued as promotional inserts in packets and tins of cigarettes and chewing tobacco produced by the Allen & Ginter cigarette and chewing tobacco company of Richmond, Virginia. A total of 55 cards made up the entire set, with each card front featuring an image of a baseball player in his uniform along with his name and team. On the backs were advertisements for Allen & Ginter’s tobacco products. Notable among the 55 players depicted were future Hall of Famers Pud Galvin, Candy Cummings, George Wright, and Cap Anson.
The cards were printed using a basic lithographic process, which wasn’t as detailed or high quality as later baseball cards would be. But the soft, colorful images provided an early glimpse into the human faces behind the players and teams that many Americans were becoming familiar with through the rapid spread of professional baseball across the country during Reconstruction. Issuing cards of famous ballplayers helped Allen & Ginter promote both their tobacco and the excitement surrounding the up-and-coming sport.
Of the 55 original 1870 Allen & Ginter cards produced, it is estimated that only about 60-100 complete sets still exist today in various states of preservation. This scarcity is what makes individual 1870 cards among the most valuable and sought-after in the entire history of baseball cards. In recent years, high-grade examples of cards featuring stars like Galvin and Wright have sold at auction for over $100,000 each. Even poorly-preserved examples can still fetch tens of thousands of dollars.
The conditioning and centering of 1870 cards was not always the most consistent due to the limitations of lithographic mass printing at that time. Edges are often heavily rounded or wrinkled. So grading services like PSA provide clarity on a card’s state of preservation when a numerical grade is assigned. Simply possessing an original 1870 card in any grade is a thrill for die-hard baseball memorabilia collectors, as they are connection to the very earliest period of documented baseball card history.
While the 1870 Allen & Ginter cards were notable for being the first complete baseball card set, they were not the first baseball cards ever. That distinction belongs to a small series of promotional cards inserted in packages of the Plug Tobacco brand as early as 1868. Only a handful of those early cards are known to still exist today. Allen & Ginter’s 1870 effort helped take the emerging concept of sports cards being included as advertisements to a new level. Their cards played a role in cementing baseball as a mainstream American pastime by introducing the world to the game’s first true superstars.
In the years after 1870, various tobacco companies like Goodwin & Company and Hymen Lipsner would follow Allen & Ginter’s lead by issuing their own series of baseball cards to customers. But Allen & Ginter set the standard as being the first major brand to create a complete, cohesive set honoring all of professional baseball’s top players from that season. Their innovation served as a blueprint that card companies would follow for decades as baseball grew to become America’s national pastime in the late 1800s. While printing and production techniques would evolve, Allen & Ginter’s pioneering effort in 1870 laid important groundwork for the rich history of baseball cards that has brought joy to collectors for over 150 years.
The Allen & Ginter 1870 set marked a seminal early watershed moment in the beginnings of documented baseball card history. By producing colorful lithographic images of that era’s most prominent ballplayers and distributing them widely through their popular tobacco products, Allen & Ginter helped spread enthusiasm for professional baseball. Their cards introduced and commemorated stars who were forging the foundations of the National Pastime. Today, in their fragile surviving remnants, the 1870 cards provide a tangible link and reminder of those pioneering days at the dawn of baseball’s Golden Age. They remain among the most rare, prized, and valuable collectibles in the entire history of sports memorabilia.
