Gallaher Rugby Cigarette Cards 1912

Rule #33 : When you have no spare time, just post some nice pictures ;-)

I once declared to a friend - a fellow rugby memorabilia collector - that I will never start collecting cigarette cards... Indeed, it appears to be an endless task and some of the rarest (and most beautiful...) cards could cost an arm and a leg...

Yet... cigarette cards regularly bring nice rugby illustrations, quality portaits of players, vivid colours among B&W photographs and a good understanding of what rugby was about in the 1900s...

Say, I don't collect rugby cigarette cards... but do have a few hundreds of them now...

So... here is a series of 10 rugby cigarette cards published in 1912 by Gallaher (London and Dublin), part of "100 designs Sports Series"

Back of the cards are self-explanatory like "slow and lob passes are useless" or "tackling must not be mild and half-hearted"...

And I've also packed the cards into a 1min video... Enjoy!

Comments

[Steve]

Ce qui me frappe est le niveau de détail sur chaque carte.

Ici aux états-unis, on avait les carters comme ça avec les jouers de baseball ancien comme Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, et Honus Wagner, parmi d'autres. Dommage qu'il fallait acheter les cigarettes ou d'autres produits du tabac pour les obtenir.

[Frederic (www.rugby-pioneers.com)]

Il y a des centaines (milliers ?) de cartes de rugby publiées par les marques de cigarettes en UK, South Africa, NZ ... en France, nous navons que cartes dans les paquets de chocolat !!

If you dont know it already, check Justins website 
http://www.rugbycards.co.nz/Cigarette%20cards/cards1.htm 

Justin is also the author of a cool reference book about rugby cigarette cards 
http://www.rugbycards.co.nz/Book/Book%20Page.htm also in video 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=NZhl=en-GBv=NRIN8T6cRAM