• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Get Sports Collectors Daily via EMail
    • Advertise with SC Daily
    • Write for Sports Collectors Daily
    • Write About Your Sports Collection
    • Where Can I Sell My Baseball Cards?
  • Hot on eBay
    • Most Watched Graded Rookies
    • Most Watched PSA 10 Cards
    • Most Watched BGS, BVG Cards
    • Most Watched SGC Cards
    • Most Watched CSG,CGC Cards
    • Most Watched Baseball Cards
      • Most Watched 2023 Baseball Cards
      • Most Watched 2022 Baseball Rookie Cards
      • Bowman Chrome Cards
      • Ronald Acuna Jr. Cards
      • Shohei Ohtani Cards
      • Mike Trout Cards
      • Fernando Tatis Jr. Cards
      • Babe Ruth Cards
      • Hank Aaron Cards
      • Jackie Robinson Cards:
      • Mickey Mantle Cards
      • Willie Mays Cards
      • Vintage Baseball Card Sets
      • T206 Cards
    • Most Watched Basketball
      • Top 100 Most Watched Basketball Rookie Cards
      • 100 Hottest 2022-23 NBA Rookie Cards
      • 100 Hottest 2021-22 NBA Rookie Cards
      • 100 Hottest 2020-21 NBA Rookie Cards
      • 100 Hottest 2019-20 NBA Rookie Cards
        • Zion Williamson Rookie Cards
        • Ja Morant Rookie Cards
      • Michael Jordan Cards
      • Kobe Bryant Cards
      • LeBron James Rookie Cards
      • Nikola Jokic Rookie Cards
      • Giannis Antetokounmpo Cards
      • Luka Doncic Rookie Cards
      • Prizm Basketball Cards
      • Panini National Treasures
    • Most Watched Football Cards
      • Most Watched NFL Rookie Cards
      • 2022 NFL Rookie Cards
        • Brock Purdy Rookie Cards
      • 2021 NFL Rookie Cards
      • 2020 NFL Rookie Cards
        • Joe Burrow Rookie Cards
        • Justin Herbert Rookie Cards
        • Jalen Hurts Rookie Cards
      • Josh Allen Rookie Cards
      • Patrick Mahomes Rookie Cards
      • Tom Brady Cards
    • Most Watched Hockey Cards
      • Top 100 Most Watched Hockey Rookie Cards
      • Most Watched 2021-22 NHL Rookie Cards
      • Most Watched 2020-21 Rookie Cards
      • Most Watched 2019-20 Rookie Cards
      • Connor McDavid Cards
      • Wayne Gretzky Cards
      • Bobby Orr Cards
    • Most Watched Soccer Cards
    • Most Watched UFC Cards
    • Most Watched Golf Cards
    • Most Watched 1 of 1 Cards
    • Most Watched Racing Cards
    • Top Sports Card Dealers on eBay
    • Most Watched Memorabilia
      • Vintage Sports Memorabilia
    • Vintage Sports Tickets, Stubs
    • Most Watched Autographs
  • Ending Soon on Ebay
    • Baseball Cards
    • Basketball Cards
    • Football Cards
    • Hockey Cards
    • Soccer Cards
    • Golf Cards
    • UFC Cards
  • Top - Ad

Sports Collectors Daily

Sports Collectors Daily

Sports collecting news - Sports cards and sports memorabilia industry news.

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network. 

  • Sports Memorabilia News
  • Sports Card News
    • Modern Sports Card News
      • New Sports Card Release Calendar
      • Shop Talk
    • Vintage Sports Card News
      • Affordable Vintage Cards, Collectibles
      • Old Baseball Card Sets
      • Old Basketball Card Sets
      • Old Football Card Sets
      • Old Hockey Card Sets
      • Vintage Pack Facts
  • Business/Industry News
    • Sports Memorabilia Business News
    • Sports Memorabilia Industry News
  • Around The Hobby
    • Editor’s Blog
    • David Cycleback’s Identification and Authentication Advice
  • Popular Stories
  • Sell Your Cards
You are here: Home / Sports Card News / Vintage Sports Card News / 1909 Kids Were Caught Up in Baseball Card Mania

1909 Kids Were Caught Up in Baseball Card Mania

February 8, 2009 By Rich Mueller

Maybe we’ve found the true answer as to why Honus Wagner didn’t want his picture used in the T206 tobacco card series.

A recently discovered column that appeared in the August 9, 1909 edition of the Charlotte (NC) Observer, and a follow-up on September 1 of that year, would indicate the cards were quite a sensation on Tobacco Road.

The Observer’s current day librarian made the near century-old accounts available to Sports Collectors Daily. The first story, written in the editorial style common to the day, is entitled “The Small Boy’s Mania. The subhead and story read:
Pictures of “Baseball Men” More Sought After Than Gold–The Small Boy’s Greatest Desire is to secure Pictures of Ty Cobb and Hans Wagner.


The amount of interest displayed by the small boys of the community over the pictures of the National and American League baseball players that come, one in every pack of Piedmont cigarettes, is remarkable.

Home Run Baker T206SPiedmont back T206 Plankince the beginning of summer, when the American Tobacco Company commenced putting the pictures in their packages of cigarettes, the small boy has been more or less of a nuisance by stopping young and old men as they walked along the street begging for “baseball men”.

The collections have become a mania. Whenever a new shipment of cigarettes is opened, the small boy congregates around the stand and every purchaser is besieged, and not allowed to leave until the picture has been forced from him.

Saturday, a frying-sized kid purchased $1 worth of cigarettes, and after securing the desired pictures, peddled the smokeables to the passers on the streets. Often two packages of cigarettes were offered for 5 cents, but the pictures had always been extracted.

The children match one another for the picture and the winner walks away exultant with the entire collection of his friends in his hands. The gambling amounts to guess work. While the picture is flying in the air one of the boys calls the side it will fall on, face up or down. If in his guess he is correct, the picture goes to him, other wise, he has lost one of his own pictures.

1900s kids playing baseball

T206 CobbMore especially are the likenesses of Ty Cobb and Hans Wagner desired, and until a week ago only a few pictures of Cobb had been found, two of these being in the possession of the Buford Hotel cigar stand. Last Thursday in a new shipment of cigarettes received at the Wilson Drug store on East Trade Street, 13 pictures of Ty Cobb were found in the first installment opened. The boys of the street went wild securing money from every available source they began purchasing from the W.L. Hand Drug Store. Before night over 3,000 cigarettes had been sold by one firm and on the streets 5-cent packages of cigarettes were being sold for as little as a cent apiece.

Years ago when the Duke cigarette was being sold in enormous quantities, pictures of actresses were enclosed in the packages, and at that time much interest was taken in securing collections. Nearly every man under 30 years of age can remember the time when he yearned for the largest collection of the pictures and many of those old pictures are still to be found in unused trunks and forgotten corners. The craze at that time, however, did not take the violent form which has attacked the “baseball men”.


T206 Red Hindu backsA few weeks later, the nearby Winston (NC) Sentinel also published a commentary on the topic, entitled “Tempting the Children”. It read:

The advertising man who conceived the idea of putting baseball pictures in cigarette packages did a good thing for his employers, but a mighty bad thing for the small boy. There ought to be some way to prohibit this kind of thing. It will do more to start young boys to smoking cigarettes than any other agency of which we can conceive.

That was followed by the Observer’s take on the Sentinel’s editorial:

The Sentinel has a good idea of the situation. The man who thought of using the baseball craze to advertise cigarettes was a man who knew his business and is a valuable man to the American Tobacco Company, but then the idea has its bad side. Every child is wild to get the baseball men and every nickel that can be gotten goes for cigarettes. Of course it is impossible to find out who sells them, but a news item from this city this week states that the number of licenses to sell cigarettes has increased wonderfully within the last few months. That the boys are buying the cigarettes is a settled fact and there are always people who will sell anything for the money.


Dreier Collection T206 Wagner PSA 4The stories are interesting on a number of levels. First, it’s obvious that kids were crazy for baseball in 1909. No doubt, they were following the games through the newspapers and playing baseball themselves. The availability of such a personal connection to the players–in color no less–had to have been exciting. Kids being kids, they were willing to do anything to get those precious cards and see their heroes up close.

Second, the mention of Wagner seems to indicate that his card was available and kids knew it–or had seen them. Estimates that less than 100 survive today would indicate that the card had to have been pulled within weeks, if not days, of its issue.

Third, it’s interesting that the papers’ attempts to protect kids from an association with cigarettes came in the heart of tobacco country. We’re guessing American Tobacco took a lot of heat from parents and other adults during the three years the T206 cards were produced, but didn’t cave in because of what would appear to have been a very successful promotion that sold millions of cigarettes.

And lastly, the content of the piece reveals that the ‘flipping game’ that was so popular in the 1950s, was alive and well in 1909.

How many smokers were born –and met their premature end–because of a baseball card addiction is pretty ironic. Bubble gum, it would now seem, was relatively harmless in spite of post-War moms warnings about tooth decay.

See thousands of T206 cards on eBay here.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Facebook Messenger

Related Stories:

Selling Packs with T206 Cards in 1909 Was Sometimes Hazardous High Costs of 19th Century Tobacco Cards Revealed T206 Wagner Card Sells for $1.2 Million T206 Big Four Stand the Test of Time Despite Strong Population, T206 Prices Keep Rising T206 Wagner Draws NYC Attention T206 Red Hindu backsT206 Cards Caused Uproar Upon 1909 Release

About Rich Mueller

Rich is the editor and founder of Sports Collectors Daily. A broadcaster and writer for over 40 years and a collector for even longer than that, he's usually typing something somewhere. Type him back at [email protected].

Filed Under: Vintage Sports Card News Tagged With: cigarette cards, kids smoking, t206, T206 baseball card set, t206 honus wagner, T206 Wagner, tobacco cards

Primary Sidebar

Our articles may contain affiliate links. When you click on links to merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network. 

Shop Sports Cards on Ebay
  • Football
  • Basketball
  • Baseball
  • Hockey

High End Cards and Memorabilia

  • BBCE Authenticated Boxes, Packs opens in a new window
  • Graded pre-War Card eBay Auctions
  • PWCC Premier Auction
  • PWCC Fixed Price Marketplace
  • Graded Rookie Cards on eBay opens in a new window
  • Authenticated Photos on eBay opens in a new window
  • Graded Tickets & Stubs opens in a new window

Bargain Corner

  • Michael Jordan cards $5 and less opens in a new window
  • Kobe Bryant cards $5 and less opens in a new window
  • Mickey Mantle Cards Under $150 opens in a new window
  • Graded T206 Cards Under $150 opens in a new window
  • Pre-War Cards Under $100 opens in a new window
  • Pre-1980 Graded Baseball Cards $10 and Less opens in a new window
  • Pre-1980 Graded Football Cards $10 and Less opens in a new window
  • Vintage Graded Basketball Cards $25 and less opens in a new window
  • Vintage Graded Hockey Cards $10 and Less opens in a new window
  • Complete Sets $20 and Less opens in a new window
  • Baseball Hall of Famers for $5 or Less opens in a new window
  • Football Hall of Famers for $5 or Less opens in a new window
  • Hobby Boxes Under $30 opens in a new window
  • Pre-1986 Rookie Cards Under $1 opens in a new window
  • Buy Boxes Directly from Topps opens in a new window

RSS Auction Report

  • Steve Novella Offers PSA Baseball & Football Card Auction Ending October 3, 2023
  • REA September 2023 Encore Auction Brings in $1.7 Million in Sales
  • PWCC September 2023 Premier Auction Recap

Footer

Categories

  • Around the Hobby
  • Business/Industry News
    • Sports Memorabilia Business News
    • Sports Memorabilia Industry News
  • David Cycleback's Identification and Authentication Advice
  • Editor's Blog
  • Featured Articles
  • Hobby Shop Talk
  • National Sports Collectors Convention
  • Popular Stories
  • Rich Klein's Ramblings
  • Sports Card News
    • Modern Sports Card News
      • New Sports Card Release Calendar
    • Vintage Sports Card News
      • Old Baseball Card Sets
      • Old Basketball Card Sets
      • Old Football Card Sets
      • Old Hockey Card Sets
      • Vintage Pack Facts
  • Sports Memorabilia News
  • Uncategorized

Sponsor Links

  • Sports Card Forumopens in a new window
  • Buying Vintage Sports Cardsopens in a new window
  • Game Used Jerseysopens in a new window
  • Championship Rings For Saleopens in a new window
  • Vintage Basketball Cardsopens in a new window
  • NBA Signed Itemsopens in a new window
  • Autographed Baseballsopens in a new window
  • NASCAR Autographsopens in a new window
  • Vintage Graded Baseball Cardsopens in a new window
  • Player Picturesopens in a new window
  • Vintage Football Cardsopens in a new window
  • Sports Collectors Storeopens in a new window

Pages

Ending on eBay Soon
  • Baseball Card Auctions on eBay Ending Soon
  • Basketball Card Auctions on eBay Ending Soon
  • Football Card Auctions on eBay Ending Soon
  • Hockey Card Auctions Ending Soon on eBay
  • Vintage Sports Memorabilia on eBay Ending Soon
Top 100 on Ebay
  • Top 100 Most Watched Baseball Rookie Cards on eBay
  • Top 100 Most Watched Basketball Rookie Cards for Sale on eBay
  • Top 100 Most Watched Hockey Rookie Card Auctions
  • Top Authenticated Vintage Unopened Sports Card Boxes, Packs on eBay
Most Watched on eBay
  • 100 Most Watched Graded Rookie Cards for Sale on eBay
  • 100 Most Watched Tom Brady Card Auctions on eBay
  • 50 Hottest Hobby Boxes at Auction on eBay
  • 50 Most Watched Golf Trading Cards on eBay
  • 50 Most Watched Wrestling Trading Cards on eBay
  • 75 Most Watched Bowman Chrome Cards
  • Most Popular Bobbleheads on eBay
  • Most Watched 1/1 Cards on eBay
  • Most Watched Basketball Cards on eBay
  • Most Watched Complete Baseball Card Sets at Auction on eBay
  • Most Watched Football Cards on eBay
  • Most Watched Football Rookie Card Auctions
  • Most Watched Goudey Baseball Cards on eBay
  • Most Watched Hockey Cards on eBay
  • Most Watched Racing Cards on eBay
  • Most Watched Soccer Cards for Sale on eBay
  • Most Watched Sports Autographs on eBay
  • Most Watched Sports Jerseys on eBay
  • Most Watched Unopened Sports Card Boxes, Packs on eBay
  • Most Watched Vintage Sports Memorabilia on eBay
  • Hottest Panini National Treasures Cards on eBay
  • Hottest PSA 10 Cards for Sale on eBay
  • What’s Hot on eBay
Sports Memorabilia
  • Sports Card Bargain Bin
  • Sports Memorabilia Auctions Ending Soon on eBay
About Sports Collectors Daily
  • Advertise with SC Daily
  • Contact Us
  • Get Sports Collectors Daily via EMail
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
Sell Your Cards
  • What’s It Worth
  • Where Can I Sell My Baseball Cards?

Copyright © 2023 SportsCollectorsDaily.com | Web Design by Wickam Groupopens in a new window