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.

The most valuable cigarette card in the world features Honus Wagner, one of the great names in U.S. baseball at the turn of the 20th century.

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.