Cigarette Cards and other ephemera

Cigarette Cards, Trade Cards,

Miniature Playing Cards and other ephemera.

Playing Cards often feature in the design of items such as cigarette cards, trade cards, score cards, telephone cards, matchbox labels and lottery tickets, as well as in advertisements, calendars, cigarette packets, chinaware, brochures, beer mats, key rings, cigar bands, sweet wrappers, post cards, book illustrations, music manuscripts, inside Christmas crackers and so on…. more

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Peruvian Cigarette Cards

Above: two cards from 40-card lithographed pack, probably manufactured in Spain for the Peruvian tobacco market, c.1890.

Above: miniature Disney Mickey Mouse cards.

Above: Spanish trade cards from razor blade boxes, c.1938.

Above: Cigarette packet. See more►

Above: D Harper & Co Ltd was a British manufacturer of fancy goods in the early 20th century, exhibiting at the British Industries Fairs of 1922, 1929, 1937 and 1947. The cards, which appear to be a copy of Goodall's Tom Thumb patience cards, are in a faux leather folder, with a press stud enclosure (marked "English Maker") in apparent cheeky parody of a Victorian family bible. The spine has the text "Let Us Play", quite radical for the period!  (Click image to zoom). Images courtesy Matt Probert.

Above: in around 1935, Wix gave away free miniature playing cards in packets of Kensitas cigarettes. Smokers could also save coupons (known as certificates) from packets of Kensitas cigarettes and then exchange these for a full-size pack of cards. It would appear that two cards were issued in a packet of 10 cigarettes, and in packets of 20 five miniature cards with instructions for a magic trick. The miniature cards were produced with ornamental back designs in either red or blue. Image courtesy Matt Probert.

Above: miniature playing cards inset into collectable cigarette cards manufactured in Peru, c.1920  more →

Above: miniature playing cards for W.D. & H.O. Wills' Flag Cigarettes c.1930. Image courtesy Matt Probert.

Above: miniature playing cards inserted into consumer products as a sales incentive and for children to collect  more →

Above: Waddingtons playing cards on Bermuda postage stamps commemorating the World Bridge Championship, 1975.

Children’s Card Games with Advertising

Sales incentives - from the collection of Rex Pitts

Whist Score cards

from the collection of Tony Hall

Cigarette Paper Packets

from the Biblioteca Nacional de España online collection

Above: cigarette paper packets from the Biblioteca Nacional de España online collection►

Above: the 1917 original Wills's Cigarette "Arms of Companies" series cigarette card depicting the "Playing Card Makers". Courtesy Matt Probert.

Above: from a set of four cork-backed coasters made in England by Present Solutions. The playing card designs are post-1974. Courtesy Matt Probert.

Above: Las Vegas “Poker” Watch. Image courtesy Matt Probert.

By Simon Wintle

Member since February 01, 1996

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Curator and editor of the World of Playing Cards since 1996. He is a former committee member of the IPCS and was graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal for many years. He has lived at various times in Chile, England and Wales and is currently living in Extremadura, Spain. Simon's first limited edition pack of playing cards was a replica of a seventeenth century traditional English pack, which he produced from woodblocks and stencils.