Cigarette Cards: Intimate portraits of early movie star screen idols

Cigarette cards were first introduced in the 1880s as stiffeners for individual cigarette packs. The U.S. was first to produce cigarette cards, but Britain followed suit shortly afterward. The first two decades of the Twentieth Century are considered the 'golden age' of the card production, with literally hundreds of suppliers producing them. The cards usually had a nautical or military theme reflecting the interests of soldiers and sailors as the main consumers of tobacco.

The demand for cards decreased during the great war because of print supply shortages, and then resumed popularity again in the inter-war period, but now with a broader variety of pictorial subjects. Advances in printing technology in the 1920s also allowed for this new proliferation of card subjects, including sports, motor cars, and boating.

At MovieFanCollectibles, we became intensely interested in cigarette cards produced in the inter-war and post WWII era as movie memorabilia, because of our passion for lobby cards, movie stills, and other vintage movie promotional materials. We like the aesthetic experience of viewing cigarette cards, which is quite unlike that of looking at other forms of movie memorabilia.

The card's small size that allows them to fit into a cigarette pack also gives them a jewel-like cameo or locket quality, which is meant for one viewer at a time. The experience is one of intimacy with the subject matter. Some of the cards have surprisingly high resolution with much visual data available given their cigarette-pack size. Other cigarette cards, which may have a lower resolution in their printing process gain their charm from special die-cut shapes such as the oval lozenge-shaped cards pictured here with Clark Gable and Laurel & Hardy in all their glory.

Material shortages put an end to the cigarette card craze, although some printers and tobacco companies were considering bringing them back in the 1960s. But it was never to be.

Pictured: Clark Gable, Robert Young & Claudette Colbert, Laurel & Hardy, Ilona Massey

Thanks to Franklin Cards for cigarette card info