Chewing Tobacco conjures images of the Wild West, spittoons and Back to the Future. I believed that 'smokeless tobacco' was a thing of the past. How wrong I was. In seeking some information on the Red Man brand I discovered that chewing (and spitting!) is still widely practiced.Baseball cards had not been included in Tobacco products since 1920, until 1952 when Red Man issued a set of cards, attractive big cards measuring 9cm (3.5 in) by 9cm with a 1cm (0.5in) stub at the bottom. The stub could be removed from the card and 50 stubs exchanged for a Big League Baseball cap in the team of your choosing.
Red Man chose to keep all the baseball information on the front of the card and use the back to advertise their product. For four years, 1952 to 1955, Red Man included baseball cards in their chewing tobacco. If you want to drool a little bit at a amazing collection of the entire 4 year run take a look at this blog.
The 1955 set included 25 players from the American League and 25 from the National League.
I was able to purchase this card #20 Pete Runnels Washington Senators with the stub. Unfortunately the cap offer expired on June 15th 1956.
Red Man tobacco products are still available( in only the top quality stores naturally ) but baseball cards have been replaced by fishing lures.
6 comments:
Great looking card from a great looking set. Shame the cards are so big! Mine takes up so much room in the box its in.
Great card. I've been tempted to buy these before, but the storing issue keeps me from doing anything.
I was lucky enough to obtain a 1952 Red Man card of Eddie Robinson with the tab for a song. It's still one of my prized cards.
A four pocket page from Ultra Pro will fit these cards just fine.
So you're the guy who outbid me.That is a really nice card,very hard to find ones with the tab still attached.Did you get two other cards with the Redman?
very nice.
Those Red Man sets are great and it's even doubly great that you found a full on cut one. Awesome!!!
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