[TanksAndSpartans]

I'm going to bump this one last time as I have to admit, I got really interested.

I found a Beckett source saying that these Mayo cards hit smack in a card dead spot. The jist of it is in 1887, the hobby got Old Judge cards, but in 1890, a tobacco monopoly was formed (ATC) which halted card production which was a way to compete through product differentiation. But, Mayo wasn't part of the tobacco monopoly. They'd have no reason not to issue cards and it could be argued an incentive to do so. Not sure if it's a coincidence, but it looks like Mayo wasn't selling cigarettes either, maybe there was just no way to compete with the monopoly on cigarettes, but they could stay in business selling a different product (I'd call it chewing tobacco, but Mayo's tag line mentions it could be rolled into cigarettes as well). I suspect economic historians have written on this - I'm just speculating.

On the player side, as a pro football collector, I always thought not only are these college players, but you only get three different schools who were football powerhouses at the time, but not in the present day. Then something Jeff wrote in the pre-war thread caught my eye:

Thomas "Doggie" Trenchard played football at Princeton and was an All-American in 1893. He was an early professional football player, playing for the Latrobe Athletic Association and Allegheny Athletic Association from 1895 - 1898.....

How does this fit into pro football history? It could be argued that it's pretty significant. There is a display in the HOF of the Allegheny AA 1892 expense sheet for a game showing they paid Pudge Heffelfinger and two other players. Before that it was thought that John Brallier who played for Latrobe in 1895 was the first pro. My point being, I'm thinking the Trenchard is the earliest card of a pro football player which is pretty cool.

Finally, as someone who lived in Pittsburgh for a time, I like the idea of Pittsburgh as the "cradle of professionalism", but I also think these "social clubs" i.e. athletic associations existed in New York and Chicago as well in the same time period. Hard not to think at least one of them hired some ringers at some point....