[rhettyeakley]

I collect a ton of non-sports cards. Non-sports tobacco cards predate Sports by several years. It was thought the Marquis of Lorne card was the 1st Tobacco card set but the past few years we have discovered that the likely 1st set was the N342 Between The Acts series that began roughly 1877-1878 by the Thomas Hall Tobacco Co. they continued to make cards of actresses/actors from that time period all the way into the 1890’s.

That same outfit produced the first set of sports Tobacco cards as well around 1881. It is a set of 12 cards featuring “pedestrians” (long distance runners of sorts) and “oarsmen”. I have nearly the whole set of those cards if you wanted to see some.

Baseball cards began several years later in and around 1886 with the Old Judge series (N167)