Blowin’ Smoke—The Art of Trading Cards

Blowin’ Smoke and Brushing Up on History

It’s 1885 and you’re sitting in a marketing meeting at the Richmond, Virginia, offices of Allen & Ginter. The tobacco company needs to stand out from its U.S. competitors. But those Brits!—They are the real competition for you and your fellow American tobacconists.

Allen & Ginter has already put itself on the cutting edge in the industry. The first tobacco company to hire a women, they’d created a cost-effective army to hand-roll their cigarettes. Furthermore, their prize offering to anyone able to create a cigarette rolling machine looked like it was coming to fruition.

The marketing challenge: How do you bring the product of these marvels of modern entrepreneurship to the masses? How do you … umm … smoke the competition?

Social media and the Worldwide web are a century away. Television won’t be around the average person’s home for another 50 years. Even radio is more than a couple of decades away from being a viable medium.

What’s an ad executive to do?

I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death.

LEO BURNETT
American advertising executive
1891—1971
Communications of an Advertising Man

Smoke Signals 

Follow my social media accounts and you’ll soon discover my love of art. Mixed in with Monet,  Picasso, O’Keeffe, Pollack, and Klimt lessor known and often unnamed artists make their way into my streams. Their canvases were likely never hanging in the Louvre. However, their audience was arguably larger.

Around the turn of the century (nineteenth century, that is) advertisers relied on art to sell products. While print publications and posters had their place, trading cards and postcards became popular mediums to reach the masses.

Advertising postcards were mailed or distributed at popular gathering places. Then trading cards came into play in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. These typically came with products (especially gum and candy) as an additional enticement to consumers—a freebee, if you will.

Trading cards added to packs of smokes by Allen & Ginter in the late 1880s became known as cigarette cards. The first tobacco company to do this, in addition to being promotional tools, the cards were used to stiffen cigarette packaging.

When Allen & Ginter merged with its three U.S. competitors in 1890 to create the American Tobacco Company, cigarette cards remained in the marketing mix. Taking note of their success, British tobacco companies also began adding trading cards to their packaging.

From Blowin’ Smoke to Wildfire

Call it low-brow art if you want, but these illustrated inserts became wildly popular. A reflection of the times, cigarette cards were printed in series of 25 to 100 based on contemporary themes. These included sports.

In the U.S. that meant baseball cards. Across the pond, British-based companies featured the athletes of cricket and football—soccer to those American colonists.

Other subjects depicted on cigarette cards included popular actresses and models of the time in sets called “beauties”. Historical and cultural figures; costumes; military uniforms; heraldry; natural and industrial subjects; humorous and contemporary mores were featured, too.

Cigarette cards remained tobacco company mainstays through the 1930s. Those issued from the nineteenth century through 1939 period are referred to as “vintage” or “pre-war”.

Rummaging around your grandparents’ attic lately? If you come across one of these vintage cards, you may want to see how collectors value them. Some (especially baseball cards) have sold at auction for tens of thousands of dollars. And then there’s Honus Wagner.

“The Flying Dutchman” played 21 seasons of professional baseball from 1897 through 1917—most with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Considered by many to be the greatest shortstop of all time, he was one of the first five members inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame. Oh! And if you happen to have his 1909 American Tobacco Company T206 card, one sold for $7.25 million at auction in 1921. Just sayin’.

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

MARK TWAIN
American humorist, entrepreneur, inventor, publisher, journalist, lecturer, and author
1835—1910
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

From Blowin’ Smoke to Blowing Bubbles

If you’re a U.S. baby boomer, you likely grew up collecting Topps baseball cards.

The Topps Company was founded in Brooklyn, NY, in 1938. It remains the giant of baseball card producers but also issues other trading cards and collectibles. These include some non-sports-themed trading cards.

Though founded in 1938, its roots go back to that same year mentioned before—1890. When the American Tobacco Company was created, so was the American Leaf Tobacco Company. The latter supplied imported tobacco to former.

With World War I, the American Leaf Tobacco Company found itself cut off from its main source of imported tobacco—Turkey. The Great Depression only compounded the company’s woes.

Subsequently, it renamed itself as Topps implying it was beyond merely “the top” in its industry. Ask those baby boomers and they’ll tell you “Topps quality” meant just that whether talking baseball cards or anything else.

Likewise, Topps rebranded itself. Leaving tobacco behind, Topps became a giant in the manufacture of chewing gum. Packaged in individual pieces with its iconic comic strip wrapper, Bazooka Bubble Gum was born!

In the 1950s Topps began packaging its gum with trading cards to increase sales. By 1952 the focus of those trading cards became baseball. Today Topps remains the leading producer of baseball trading cards.

Holy Smokes! They’re Back!

Meanwhile, across the pond, Carreras, a relatively small U.K. tobacco company, tried to jump start the popularity of cigarette cards. However, brief launches with its Turf label in the 1950s and 1960s, and its Black Cat brand in 1976 fell flat.

But that was not the death knell for cigarette cards.

Subsequently, America’s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company found success when it issued the “Doral Celebrate America” cards in 2000 and 2001. These first two releases featured the 50 U.S. states. Later themes across its brands included national parks; festivals; cars; wind power; farming; and diversity.

Meanwhile, the folks at Topps took notice. In 2006 they resurrected the Allen & Ginter name and issued sets of trading cards under their brand. Though initially staying true to its emphasis on baseball, contemporary Allen & Ginter sets would come to include other sports personalities, pop culture stars, and historical figures.

Consequently, the Allen & Ginter sets have become the highest selling brand in the Topps product line.

Just Blowin’ Smoke—Period!

There is no doubt that vintage cigarette cards are both art-worthy and historically relevant. To sports, military, and general historians, these cards are records of society a century ago. Details of clothing design along with insights into the mores of their era make vintage cigarette cards valuable cultural artifacts.

But let’s not forget their other success. By 1950, cigarettes were firmly implanted into the social fabric of the world. Between 50 and 80 percent of adults in western countries were hooked. Cigarette cards did have that desired appeal for adults and effectively boosted the sale of smokes.

On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the impact they’ve likely had on children and young people. Given the initial use of trading cards to sell gum and candy, the jump to cigarettes isn’t a big leap. The reintroduction of cigarette cards by big tobacco in this century underscores the complaint that kids are a marketing target.

Therefore, it’s worthy to note a newer take on cigarette cards. In the past two decades, American cigarette manufacturers have begun including “Information For Smokers” cigarette cards in certain packs. Some remind customers of the dangers of smoking. Others provide information on how to quit.

Ultimately, it’s easy to demonize the process which drove cigarettes and their health hazards into the homes of so many. And it’s arguably right to do so.

Similarly, it’s easy to appreciate the artwork of cigarette cards. Beyond the product they promote, these trading cards reflect the people and societies which embraced them.

It’s true to say:

Have a penchant for collectibles? If so, what kind? How about a childhood memory with trading cards at the center? Feeling the sudden desire to search the attic for hidden treasures? Maybe you’ve already done so and cashed in big time!

We wanna know! Join the conversation below and tell the world your thoughts!

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