Baseball and other sports cards have been produced and collected for over a hundred years. Even if you collect only cards of current players, you may find it interesting to see how cards have evolved. In this article, I'll discuss the earliest cards produced. They're commonly referred to as tobacco cards.

The first baseball cards were produced in the late 1800's. They were cigarette premiums and were included with packs of cigarettes. Early cards were studio photos often picturing players posed in settings simulating batting, catching, etc. Baseball cards weren't the only offerings by these companies. They also produced cards featuring champions from other sports such as boxing and non-sport cards.

Shortly after, beautifully lithographed cards were produced. The early 1900's saw many tobacco companies offering tobacco cards to help promote their products. Along with the standard sized card (about the size of a CDV photo), there are a number of variations. Turkey Red produced a very large card. The image of the player is about the size of a cabinet card and there is a border surrounding the image with the player's name. Mecca Cigarette Company produced a double folder card where the image of one player folds over the top of another player. Hassan produced a triple folder. Tobacco cards are often identified by a letter and number combination. For example, the Turkey Red cards I described earlier are T3 cards, the Mecca Double Folders are T201's and the Hassan Triple Folders are T202's.

Anytime a Honus Wagner tobacco card appears at auction, it's big news in the sports collectibles community. Baseball great Wagner was concerned with his image being used to encourage children's tobacco use and cards picturing him are quite rare. Wal-Mart offered a T206 card of Wagner in a promotion. The lucky Florida woman who received it saw her card fetch $640,500 at auction.

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Note: Ray Tipton, Toys/Dolls/Games Editor, attended the recent International Toy Fair in New York. He'll be reporting on the fair in the next issue.