1912 Gallaher Sports Series Set and Checklist

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Gallaher Sports Series
Year	1912
Size	1 1/2″ x 2 5/8″
Images	Color
Type	Tobacco
Number in Set	100

1912 Gallaher Sports Series Set Overview

1912 Gallaher Sports Series Golf 1912 Gallaher Sports Series Tennis 1912 Gallaher Sports Series Boxing

This multi-sport issue was distributed by Gallaher, Ltd., a Belfast and London tobacco company. Cards were distributed in their Gallaher’s Cigarettes products.

Many different sports are represented and sports are grouped in tens as indicated below. All sports have ten cards with the exception of cricket, which has 20.

Golf (Cards 1-10)
Croquet (Cards 11-20)
Rugby (Cards 21-30)
Boxing (Cards 31-40)
Swimming and Diving (Cards 41-50)
Soccer (Cards 51-60)
Field Hockey (Cards 61-70)
Cricket (Cards 71-90)
Tennis (Cards 91-100)

Some of the cards are generic and do not feature specific athletes but others do have real players named. When a real athlete was featured, his name is printed in cursive red ink on the front. Generic ones simply discuss game play on the back. The cards are still very desirable among collectors and are not terribly easy to find.

1912 Gallaher Sports Series Backs The set, as specified on the backs, features 100 different cards and is called ‘Sports Series.’ The name Sports Series is written in two different fonts — some cards have a thicker, larger font while on others, the name is smaller and thinner. Fronts have color pictures of athletes performing various techniques in their particular sport. The picture on the front is within a white border area with black diagonal lines in the corners to give it the appearance of a small picture frame.

The backs give a description of the picture on the front. It is one of the many international tobacco sets that was instructional in nature, teaching collectors to play the sports shown. Some of the players named on the front are also referenced on the back. Others, however, are not. For example, James Braid is the figure noted on all ten golf cards on the front but he is not named on the reverse.

The set includes many notable athletes, including British heavyweight boxing champion Gunner Moir and golfing legend James Braid. Braid’s cards are typically the most valuable ones in the set. However, they are much less expensive than many of his other cards. Some of that is likely because he is pictured on every card in this set, making them less rare.

While this is a larger set of 100 cards, the smaller subsets making up individual sports are sometimes sold or described as being a ‘set.’ Really, however, those are only subsets and the full set consists of the 100 cards.

1912 Gallaher Sports Series Set Checklist

I have not yet been able to verify a complete checklist for this issue yet. Below are cards I have identified to date. When I have seen a particular athlete identified on a card, I have added that as well.