by Ben Crane

The American Tobacco Company issued this set of 25 tobacco insert cards in the early 1890s to advertise chewing and smoking tobacco manufactured by two of their branches, Honest Long Cut by W. Duke Sons & Co, and Navy Long Cut by G. W. Gail & Ax. Complete sets can be found for both companies.

These 2-1/2 x 4-1/8 inch cards were designed to appeal to men by showing scantily clad show girls riding various types of bicycles popular during that period, and were printed by Donaldson Brothers, N.Y.

This set is listed as N-100 in "The American Card Catalog" by Jefferson Burdick and described on page 90 of "American Tobacco Cards" by Robert Forbes and Terence Mitchell. Although these cards were distributed by packing them in the tobacco packages rather than separately like trade cards, the similarity of their subject matter and lithography certainly warrant the interest of trade card collectors.

Shown below are thumbnail images (at 25 percent of actual size) of the 25 cards arranged in alphabetical order according to title. Also shown are the reverse sides of 2 these cards, one advertising Honest Long Cut and the other advertising Navy Long Cut.

Click on a thumbnail for a larger view, or begin viewing the cards in slideshow fashion by clicking here.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25