Our regular Suffolk auctions of cigarette cards and trade cards attract interest from worldwide collectors.

 

These highly collectable cards were issued in cigarette and cigar packets in the late-19th and early-20th Centuries. At the time, it was a common pastime to collect the cards and assemble them as complete sets.

 

Antique cigarette cards are fascinating artefacts from different times, telling us much about the interests of people from the Edwardian era, alongside the lives of soldiers serving during the First World War.

 

Some cigarette card makers and their sets are more scarce, and therefore sought after, than others. One such example is a famous and valuable prototype issued by Taddy known as 'Clowns and Circus Artistes'.

 

Cigarette cards that are most in demand by collectors are those that have been kept loose, or ‘tipped in’ to albums without adhesive. Those which were glued in to the albums are worth significantly less.

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