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| The actual 1888 Theobaud Bauer card |
So today I decided to purchase my first Allen & Ginter card, after thinking of the discussion we had it seemed perfect to start my collection off with Theobaud's 1888 card which was on eBay for an extremely moderate price. I can definitely tell that my end goal will be to own every wrestling card in these sets.
First though, here is a very quick rundown on what exactly Allen & Ginter was and why trading cards from the late 1880s had professional wrestlers on them in the first place. Alan & Ginter were a tobacco company that were the very first to include collectible cards with cigarette purchases. The sets were known as "The World's Champions" and featured Baseball, Oarsmen, Wrestlers, Pugilists (Boxers), Rifle Shooters, Billiard Players, Pool Players and those are just the sports represented in the 1887 set. The 87 set had 50 cards and other than the obvious Baseball players in the set, the most sought after cards is are the Annie Oakley and "Buffalo Bill" Cody Rookie Cards!
The 1888 set contained also 50 cards but expanded the sports represented by adding Track & Field, Swimming, Tricycling, Cycling, Tennis, Club Swinging, Speed Skating and Figure Skating. This set was followed by the final installment of "The World's Champions" cards in 1889. The sport additions to the 89 set were rather odd, with some sporting names requiring me to use Google to find them (who knew Go As You Please meant a Walker?). The additions were as follows: All Around Athletes, Hammer Thrower, High Jumper, Runners, Go As You Please, Pole Vaulter and Weight Lifting.
The final breakdown of wrestling cards in these sets would be 7 in 1887, 7 in 1888 and 2 in 1889. With a total of 16 cards, collecting them all does not seem like an overly daunting task.
As a sports card collector since early childhood, it should be fair to state how amazing, important and interesting this set is. Most view trading cards as a hobby for a select few nerdy enough to get a cheap high out of opening up a back, but this set exists in a completely different realm, this set exists as American cultural history! Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill! These are huge names that actually had a trading card made of them in their time of relevance! How many people have any idea these exist? Baseball Cards are everything right about America, they make me feel 10 again and relive experiences I had with my dad, trading cards on the corner with David Borders and ripping off Alan Knapp in seemingly every trade we ever made. This hobby has existed for at least 125 years, and it is my goal in this blog to keep it going for another 125 with posts like this.
