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Dave HornishMark Murphy's pack guide states the earliest rack pack he had seen was from 1960 but the image above obviously negates that. Still, the early racks consisted of 3 cello packs and the first true rack pack is from 1968. There were also some 3rd Party racks in the 1950's and Kevin Savage auctioned a bunch of those a few years ago. The earliest was (I think) from 1954.
Topps, or somebody they sold the stock to, marketed a bagged set of redbacks though, prior to 1954. I think it was issued by Topps but cannot be sure (more screen grabs from my library of other people's cool stuff):
