The 1955 Red Man baseball card set was quite unique for its time. Issued as promotional items by Pinkerton Tobacco Company to promote their Red Man chewing tobacco brand, the 1955 Red Man set marked the first time that a brand of chewing tobacco sponsored a complete baseball card set. Unlike today where licensed MLB brands dominate the baseball card market, in the 1950s it was still very common for non-sports brands to issue baseball cards as promotional items.
The 1955 Red Man set is most notable for being one of the earliest regular issues to feature all current major league players, a major step forward from rarer early 20th century tobacco sets that mostly featured only star players. The 1955 Red Man set included cards for every single player on each American and National League roster at the start of the 1955 season, a total of 720 cards. For collectors and historians, this makes the 1955 Red Man set an incredibly comprehensive snapshot of the players who comprised the major league rosters of that season.
Pinkerton’s Red Man brand had a long association with baseball, sponsoring major league spring training tours featuring exhibition games in smaller cities and towns across America for decades. These “Red Man Tours” helped promote both the chewing tobacco and expose fans in less populated areas to major league baseball. Naturally, issuing a set of baseball cards with the current seasons players was an ideal promotional tie-in to this longstanding Red Man/Baseball connection.
Like most tobacco era baseball cards issued between the 1890s-1970s, the 1955 Red Man cards featured a combination of advertisements for the sponsoring brand along with baseball imagery and stats on the reverse. The fronts of the cards trumpeted Red Man’s slogan of “Bite off a chaw – Have a chew!” along with imagery of its iconic Indian chief mascot. Turning the cards over revealed black and white photos of each player in action, along with their career stats and team information.
Though not high quality artwork like modern cards, the 1955 Red Man set provided an invaluable early statistical record of that season’s players printed directly on the card – long before online databases existed. Things like batting averages, home runs, RBI were all prominently included on the back of every 1955 Red Man card, truly making them a unique sports/historical record from that time period. This made them very popular with young collectors both as a baseball collecting item and for the addictive chewing tobacco samples included with the cards.
It’s important to note that the target marketing of chewing tobacco products directly to minors through baseball card promotions would today be seen as unethical at best. Tobacco advertising aimed at children has been strictly regulated since the late 20th century due to health concerns. Nevertheless, the 1955 Red Man cards provide a unique snapshot of how commercially linked tobacco products were to America’s pastime in the mid-20th century before these regulations came into effect.
The 1955 Red Man set is also notable for its design variations between the American and National League cards. For example, the AL cards have a light blue border while the NL cards use red. The team logo/cap designs depicted on the fronts also matched the actual logo/cap designs used by each major league team in 1955. Attention to authentic mid-1950s baseball branding details like this help make the 1955 Red Man’s a favorite with collectors focusing on specific seasons.
There were also differences between how AL and NL player names were presented on the backs. In the AL, surnames were used alone while full names including first and middle initials were used in the NL. The variations between leagues add to the set’s charm for completists. Overall print runs for the 1955 Red Man card issue are estimated to have been quite high, in the multi-million range, reflecting Pinkerton’s goal of saturating the baseball card insert market at gas stations, stores, etc with the chewing tobacco sample packs.
Despite the massive initial print run, high-grade specimens of the 1955 Red Man set in pristine “mint” condition are still considered quite rare and valuable today among dedicated tobacco-era card collectors. This is partly due to the cards small 2 1/8″ by 3 1/4″ size which made them very susceptible to damage even in collectors books over the decades. Their scarcity has driven mint condition 1955 Red Man cards of even common players to achieve auction prices of hundreds of dollars each. Key stars rookies from that ’55 season can command thousands in top grades.
For historians, researchers, and serious baseball card collectors, the 1955 Red Man issue provides an unmatched snapshot of every single major leaguer on the rosters during a specific season through its comprehensive set. Their remarkable level of player coverage, attention to authentic mid-1950’s baseball branding details, and statistical data preserved directly on each card makes this one of the most desirable and important tobacco sets to own for those focusing on that era in the sport’s history. After all, they were truly baseball’s first “complete” players card set and a key milestone in the road to today’s licensed MLB branded releases.
