Piedmont baseball cards have significance as some of the earliest forms of sports memorabilia collecting. Originally produced between 1887-1896, Piedmont cards provide a glimpse into the early years of organized professional baseball. While not as well known as later tobacco brands like T206 and Play Ball, Piedmont cards hold value for collectors and researchers interested in the growth of baseball card culture.
The Piedmont Cigarette Company was established in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1881. By the late 1880s, they began including small non-sport related lithographs in their cigarette packages similar to competing brands. In 1887, they became one of the first companies to include baseball players on their cards. Over 140 different baseball images were distributed over the next decade in their cigarette packages, making Piedmont one of the pioneering brands of baseball memorabilia.
What makes Piedmont cards so intriguing for collectors today is they capture a transition period in both baseball and sports card culture. When the cards were first released between 1887-1889, professional baseball was still in its early developmental years. The National League had only been established since 1876 and the American Association in 1882. Many of the players featured on early Piedmont cards played before statistics were reliably tracked. Finding Piedmont cards of players from this era offers a rare glimpse into some of the earliest stars and clubs in professional baseball history.
In the 1890s, baseball continued growing rapidly in popularity while tobacco companies began experimenting more heavily in using premium memorabilia cards to promote their brands. Piedmont followed suit, releasing several series of baseball cards during this transformative decade. Their 1889-91 and 1892-93 issues were printed using a crude lithographic process on thin cardstock. Background images and color schemes varied widely even within individual sets. Production quality improved for their premium 1894-96 issues, utilizing multi-color lithography on thicker stock more akin to tobacco era standards.
The early issues remain some of the most challenging Piedmont cards for collectors to locate in high grades due to their light construction and the rough conditions many have endured over a century. Even poorly preserved copies still hold value since they represent some of the first attempts to create baseball cards as a novelty product. The highest price ever paid at auction for a Piedmont was a 1887-89 Old Judge Billy Hamilton card that achieved $72,000 in September 2019.
Condition is especially important when appraising the rarer early Piedmont subsets. Only a small numbers of 1888 Piedmont cards depicting players from the American Association are known to exist, most in poor condition and a large find in any grade above Good would elicit high prices. Similarly scarce are subsets featuring teams like the Boston Beaneaters, Pittsburgh Alleghenys, and Baltimore Orioles of the period. A select group of 25 Piedmont cards were reprinted in the magazines “The World” and “The Police Gazette” in 1889 extending the reach of some of the more historic images further still.
The later 1894-96 Piedmont issues from their premium series have also proven popular due to depicting some major stars at the peak of their careers including Cy Young, Willie Keeler, and Hughie Jennings among others. These exhibit characteristics more in line with tobacco era standards like multi-color lithography and thicker laminated stock. In top grades of GEM-MT 10, mint examples can still command several thousand dollars with the right pedigrees.
Beyond just their collecting value, Piedmont cards continue to fascinate researchers for the insights they provide into early professional baseball. Many depict now defunct clubs and players whose records were not fully documented at the time the cards were produced. Finding even damaged versions of rare Piedmonts can provide clues to fill in gaps for baseball historians. Their larger context as some of the first baseball cards distributed by American companies also cemented the sport’s growing popularity through memorabilia as a licensed product well before the tobacco era. While perhaps not as storied as later premium issues, Piedmont cards remain important touchstones for chronicling the origins of baseball card culture.
While the crude production techniques and fragile materials used for early Piedmont issues pose challenges for grading firms, their status as such early baseball memorabilia has ensured collectors remain active in searching for even damaged examples to add to their collections and deepen the archival record of professional baseball history. Condition sensitive premium reprints and upgrades of the later Piedmont subsets also appeal to investors. Demand for Piedmont cards is driven by their status as a foundational bridge between 19th century baseball fandom and the golden age of tobacco memorabilia that followed at the turn of the 20th century cementing baseball card traditions still enjoyed today.
