Today, cigarette cards are collectible – and often valuable – with age, rarity and condition influencing their price. A popular example is a card featuring US baseball star Honus Wagner from the early 1900s, one of which sold for $7.25 million (more than £5.5 million) in 2022.

Cigarette cards are trading cards issued by tobacco manufacturers to stiffen cigarette packaging and advertise cigarette brands. Between 1875 and the 1940s, cigarette companies often included collectible cards with their packages of cigarettes.

In 1909, the American Tobacco Company, a consortium of smaller companies like Sweet Caporal, Sovereign, Drum and Piedmont, decided that a set of baseball cards inserted into packs of cigarettes would give it a marketing edge over other brands.