The 1916 Zeenut brand baseball cards were produced as promotional items by the Zeenut Candy Company based in Illinois. Zeenut was a popular candy producer in the early 20th century best known for their peanut brittle and caramels. In 1916, company executives decided to try branching out by producing collectible baseball cards as a way to promote their brands to young baseball fans.
They hired sports artist Carl Horner to design the front and back of each card, choosing to feature real photos of prominent major leaguers from 1915 on the front. Each photo was hand colored since color photography was still in its infancy. On the back was statistical and biographical information for each player as well as ads for Zeenut products.
The set features 50 total cards covering players from both the American and National Leagues. Some of the biggest stars featured included Ty Cobb, Joe Jackson, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and others. The photos showed the players both in on-field action shots as well as portraits in their team uniforms. Each card stock was a thicker cardboard than previous bubble gum or tobacco issues to better withstand the rigors of young collectors.
While not the earliest baseball cards ever produced, the 1916 Zeenut set marked several milestones. It was the first set to be explicitly designed and marketed as a collectible for children rather than included randomly in candy or tobacco products. It was also among the first to use real color photos on the fronts rather than artwork or black-and-white images. Contemporary sources indicated the candy company had print runs estimated at over 500,000 sets produced.
The cards were inserted one per pack into Zeenut candy bars, caramels, and brittle sold across the Midwest and parts of the East Coast. Collectors could also purchase complete loose sets directly from Zeenut for $0.50, about average for a full new set at that time. This was an innovative direct-to-consumer sales approach not widely used for cards previously. A distinctive blue border wrapped around each 1 1⁄2” by 2 1⁄2” card sporting the Zeenut logo in one corner.
Although over a half million sets were distributed, the survival rate on the 1916 Zeenut cards has proven to be quite low given their age and the rough handling many received in kids’ hands and pockets over a century ago. Also, because they had no resale value initially and were simply promotional items, many were likely eaten, damaged, or thrown away without a second thought once collecting was done. Still, enthusiasts and experts consider any intact 1916 Zeenut card in above average condition to be a significant find today.
Grading and census data shows fewer than 150 examples are known to exist from the full 50-player set among all grades. The scarcest include stars like Home Run Baker, Edd Roush, and Smoky Joe Wood, with perhaps only a handful or two of each in collectors’ hands today. High grades of 8 or above are extremely rare, usually selling at auction for five figures or more when they surface. Even in lower grades of 3-5, individual common players can still fetch $1,000 due to their legendary status in the card collecting hobby.
What makes the 1916 Zeenuts particularly intriguing is the colorful and innovative concept behind their production that helped pave the way for the Golden Age of baseball cards in the 1920s. They represent a bridge between the early tobacco issues and modern design standards. Several grading services now recognize and encapsulate examples in the elite tier of pre-WWII cardboard. Major auction houses include selections when important vintage card collections come up for sale.
Overall the 1916 Zeenut baseball cards were an ambitious early experiment that brought the joy of card collecting to many young Midwestern baseball fans of the time through creative promotion and packaging. Despite over half a century of wear since then, their fragile remnants continue exciting collectors and historians with their blend of artistic and statistical early sports history on cardboard. Any extant examples pull strong bids as among the most coveted and challenging vintage pieces to secure in the modern marketplace.
