1887 Duke Gymnastics (N77) Set and Checklist

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Duke Gymnastics (N77)
Year	1887
Size	1 3/8″ x 2 5/8″
Images	Color
Type	Tobacco
Number in Set	25

1887 Duke Gymnastics (N77) Set Overview

This rare American tobacco card issue is one of the premier gymnastics cards ever released.

Issued by W. Duke Sons & Company Tobacco for their cigarette products, these cards are quite popular. Part of the reason the set is desirable is because it is from the 19th century. But another major factor is that the set is one of the few card sets depicting early gymnastics.

Fronts include color depictions of gymnasts in a variety of poses. The fronts also include the title of the particular activity being depicted. The bottom of the cards include the Duke Sons name and tout them as ‘The Largest Cigarette Manufacturer in the World.’

There are only 25 cards in the set, but it is not an easy set to build. Low-grade commons typically start in the $10-$20 range, so it is an affordable set. However, the cards are quite rare and often, not many are even found on eBay. PSA, for example, has graded only a little more than 100 of these cards. And while many are found in raw format (meaning the population report does not tell the entire story), they are a decidedly tough issue to find.

Note that, while most of the cards depict gymnastics, not all do. The set includes a fencing card and others include ‘circus-like’ activities.

Like other 19th century tobacco issues, these cards are significantly thicker than most tobacco cards in the 1900s.