For sale is a collection of 1936 JOHN PLAYER TOBACCO CARDS from the MOTOR CARS series. This lot includes 20 cards from a 50 card set. Back of each card includes a description and history of the car depicted. Cards are in good condition. Sale includes a plastic protective sleeve designed for holding tobacco cards. A cool tobacco collectible.
Tobacco Cards for sale include the following:
4 – Alvis Silver Eagle Saloon
6 – Aston-Martin Four-Seater Tourer
7 – Austin Sixteen York Saloon
8 – Austin Seven Ruby Saloon
9 – Auto – Union
10 – Bentley 3 1/2 Litre Sports Tourer
11- Brough Superior
15 – Daimler Light Straight Eight
16 – Daimler 15 Saloon
18 – Ford V-Eight 22 Touring Saloon
19 – Ford “Popular’ Saloon
20 – Frazier Nash Shelsley Two Seater
24 – Lagonda Drop Head Coupe
27 – Mercedes-Benz
28 – M.G. Two-Litre Saloon
34 – Riley 1 1/2 Litre Falcon Saloon
35 – Riley Two Litre Racing Model
44 – Standard 12 Saloon
45 – Talbot Ten Sports Saloon
In March 1820, William Wright set up a small tobacco factory in Craigshill, Livingston, West Lothian. This business expanded and earned Wright a comfortable fortune before selling it to John Player in 1877. One of John Player’s innovations was to offer pre-packaged tobacco. Before this, smokers would have bought tobacco by weight from loose supplies and cigarette papers to roll them in.
Beginning in 1875, tobacco cards depicting actresses, baseball players, Indian chiefs, and boxers were issued by the U.S.-based Allen and Ginter tobacco company. Other tobacco companies soon followed suit. In 1887, W.D. & H.O. Wills were one of the first companies in the U.K. to include advertising cards with their cigarettes. In 1893, John Player & Sons produced one of the first general interest sets ‘Castles and Abbeys’. Tobacco card sets typically consisted of 25 or 50 related subjects. Popular themes were ‘beauties’ (famous actresses, film stars and models), athletes (in the U.S. mainly baseball, in the rest of the world mainly football and cricket), nature, military, heraldry and city views.
