Allen & Ginter’s World’s Racers (A18) Album and Checklist

1888 Allen & Ginter World’s Racers Album (A18)

In the 19th century, tobacco companies often offered collectible albums as special premiums to consumers. This album was distributed by Allen & Ginter for their popular World’s Racers tobacco cards. The album is cataloged as A18 in the American Card Catalog.

The album features pictures of the 50 cards in their World’s Racers set (N32). The cards were originally distributed inside of packages of their cigarette products.

The album’s cover has wonderful imagery. Included is a horse racing scene with spectators as well as pictures of two of the original cigarette cards and the Allen & Ginter World’s Racers name/title.

The albums are fairly rare and include a series of loose pages held together with a string. Because the albums were not formally bound, it is fairly common to see individual pages as opposed to a complete album.

Cut Cards

The albums come up for sale on occasion but are rare. They can be found as complete albums, in individual pages, or sometimes the individual cards on each page have been cut out.

Cut out cards do hold some value but are not as valuable as the actual cards that were included in packs of cigarettes or other tobacco products. The cards in the album do not include the checklist that appeared on the backs of many of the regular cards that came with the cigarettes. However, the images of the horses and jockeys remained the same.

These albums were clearly used by collectors for different purposes. Some collectors, as mentioned, cut the cards out, preferring to have individual cards instead of the album. Others affixed their own regular cards to the album over top of the pictures on the pages as a way to store their original cards. Because of that, you will sometimes find cards that were glued to album pages, and subsequently removed, with damaged backs.

Cut cards from this set typically start at only a few dollars each. That is largely because the actual cards distributed with the cigarettes are not that expensive.

1888 Allen & Ginter World’s Racers Album (A18) Checklist

These are the cards pictured in the album.

  1. Aurelia
  2. Banburg
  3. Ben Ali
  4. Blue Wing
  5. C.H. Todd
  6. Carey
  7. Connemara
  8. Cyclops
  9. Dry Monopole
  10. Dunbine
  11. Elkwood
  12. Emp’r of Norfolk
  13. Eolian
  14. Esquimau
  15. Eurus
  16. Exile
  17. Favor
  18. Fenelon
  19. Firenzi
  20. Geo. Oyster
  21. Geraldine
  22. Hanover
  23. Hidalgo
  24. Huntress
  25. Insolence
  26. Jacobin
  27. Joe Cotton
  28. Kingmate
  29. Kingston
  30. Laggard
  31. Linden
  32. Lion
  33. Los Angeles
  34. Magnetizer
  35. Montrose
  36. My Own
  37. Oneko
  38. Pontico
  39. Raceland
  40. Richmond
  41. Saxony
  42. Sir Dixon
  43. Stockton
  44. Stuyvesant
  45. Tea Tray
  46. Terra Cotta
  47. The Bard
  48. The Lion
  49. Volante
  50. Wary

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