Piedmont Cigarette Baseball Cards: Collecting Memories from America’s Pastime
Baseball cards have long been a staple for young collectors hoping to piece together their favorite players and teams. Starting in the late 19th century, tobacco companies like Piedmont began inserting baseball cards as incentives to encourage sales. Known as “Piedmonts”, these vintage cardboard treasures documented stars from baseball’s early era and helped fuel a nation’s passion for the national pastime.
The Piedmont Cigarette Company originated in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1886 by the powerful W.Duke Sons & Company. A leading purveyor of cigarettes and other tobacco products, Piedmont sought innovative ways to market their goods. In the 1890s, they pioneered the practice of adding premiums or “prizes” inside packs and tins. Initially featuring simple lithographed drawings, Piedmont issued their first true baseball cards in 1889.
Spanning from 1889 to 1896, the Piedmont sets totaled 264 unique images featuring many of baseball’s foremost icons before the 20th century. Famous players depicted included Cap Anson, Amos Rusie, Cy Young, Kid Nichols, Hugh Duffy, and Joe Kelley among scores of others. With no two cards exactly alike, the Piedmonts were produced via a collotype printing process and cut to size after insertion. Their backs were left blank for collectors to catalog details by hand.
The earliest Piedmont cards from 1889-1890 only measured approximately 1.5 x 2.5 inches, among the smallest sized issues of that period. They transitioned to larger 2.25 x 3 inch dimensions from 1891-1896 that much better exhibited the vivid portraits. Subjects were shown from head-to-toe in their team uniforms, sometimes with statistics listed below. Considered the first “true” sets due to their uniformity and organization by league/team, the Piedmonts helped ignite baseball mania.
Apart from the iconic players of the time, the Piedmont cards offer a nostalgic window into baseball’s nascent days as America’s beloved pastime. Prior to the establishment of the modern National and American Leagues in 1901, the baseball world was much more fluid and regional in nature. Many of the teams depicted like the Boston Beaneaters, Baltimore Orioles, Louisville Colonels, and others no longer exist or moved to different cities.
Through them, we’re granted a glimpse into baseball as it was first revolutionizing into the sport we know today. Rules differed, equipment was more primitive, ballparks wooden and basic, and performance stats less comprehensive. The Piedmont cards captured MLB’s early growing pains of trying to organize itself amid the rise of new stars, heroes for millions of immigrants and fans across the United States. They preserve fleeting moments in time that may otherwise be forgotten.
From a condition standpoint, high grade specimens of Piedmonts from any year have become exceedingly rare finds over a century later. Like most tobacco era cards inserted loose with no true protective casing, the fragile pieces of pressed paper stock suffered wear and damage through constant shuffling, bending, and grime accumulation through the years. Many were likely lost, destroyed, or carelessly discarded decades ago. Some experienced dye transferred ghost images or staining from tobacco tars.
Nonetheless, what Piedmont examples remain continue rising in value due to their iconic status among early issues and connection to baseball’s formative era. Graded Piedmont rookies and star players in high levels of preservation regularly trade hands at auction for five figures or more. Even problem copies in lower graded states still hold value for collectors seeking to own a relic of America’s pastime in its nascent birth. For any serious vintage card aficionado or baseball historian, a Piedmont belongs within the collection.
The Piedmont Cigarette Company ceased production in 1961 after merging with RJ Reynolds Tobacco decades prior. But their contributions live on through the cards they gifted inside packs as novel promotions over a century ago. As one of the first non-tobacco baseball card sets ever produced, the Piedmonts birthed an industry and hobby that today spans the entire world. They remain shining beacons illuminating baseball’s rich history and some of the heralded names who helped shape the game. For those who study them, the Piedmont cards are windows providing a first glimpse at the legends of our national pastime’s legends in their infancy.
