The following topics are related to, but not necessarily directly connected to, cartophily (the hobby of collecting cigarette cards).
If you would like to produce a couple of concise paragraphs on sports cards, such as US baseball cards, or can provide information to enable me to do so, please e-mail cards@stevetalbot.com.
Among the many items of subject matter used for cigarette card sets were, quite literally, playing cards. Such sets contained 52 cards, each card corresponding to one of the cards in a standard deck (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 in each of the suits Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades). Upon completion of a full set, a collector could play standard card games with his cards.
Other sets were produced with which you could play a special game devised by the manufacturer of the cards, such as Carreras' The Greyhound Racing Game (1926).
A cartophilist who says he collects playing cards might be a theme collector who collects only such sets as these. Someone who does not collect cigarette cards but who claims to collect playing cards might collect decks of playing cards, such as those decks sold on aeroplanes bearing the name of the airline on the reverse, and the souvenir decks often sold in tourist resorts. The latter of these two hobbies is completely unrelated to cartophily.
Playing card sets should not be confused with more standard cigarette or trade card sets which contain information about playing cards, such as The Game of Poker (1936) by Cope Bros. & Co. Ltd., which contains information on the various possible poker hands. These would be of interest to a person who enjoys playing with cards, which is again a separate hobby.
Trading cards are collectable cards which are sold in packs for the purpose of collecting, as opposed to cards which are given away with other products. Each pack bought contains a small selection of cards from the set. Most collectors buy a number of packs, then swap duplicates with their friends in an attempt to complete the set. Because trading cards often come in much larger sets than cigarette or trade cards, a collector is likely to obtain many duplicates before (if ever) collecting a full set.
The distribution of the cards in the packs is not always entirely random. It is, perhaps, intentional that some cards are more common than others. Certain (rarer) cards in some sets hence become more valuable than others.
Trading card sets seem much more prevalent in the United States than in the United Kingdom, primarily because this hobby is of American origin. They should not be confused with trade cards, which are based on a different concept entirely and are covered in the History of Cartophily.
The cards which make up customisable card games, which are commonly known as CCGs, are sold in a similar way to trading cards. As the name suggests, collectors may play a game with the cards they have in their collection. The hobby of collecting and playing with these cards is quite distinct from cartophily, not least because the game may be played virtually regardless of how many cards the collector owns.
Most games have a "starter pack" which contains a random selection of cards large enough to begin playing the game and an instruction/rules booklet. Packs containing a few additional cards may then be bought separately to supplement the collection. Because of the way in which the cards are printed, the manufacturer can (quite deliberately) make some cards much rarer than others.
A collector creates a "deck" - a selection of cards from his/her collection made according to certain rules - with which to play the game. The object of the collection is to build a better deck with which to play, and hence few amateur collectors own what would be considered to be full sets of the cards. The stronger the deck, ie. the better the cards therein and the combination thereof, the more likely the collector is to win a game he/she plays.
Collectors swap cards with one another, or buy from each other, in order to continuously improve their collection. The very rare cards are worth much more than the very common ones, both in monetary and gaming terms. In our opinion, building up and playing CCGs is not a cheap hobby.
Far more information on CCGs than could possibly be included here is available on many other internet sites worldwide. (Information on CCGs is much more widely available than on cartophily, for instance, perhaps because they are more commercial.)
As well as or instead of collecting cigarette cards, some people collect the boxes and packaging in which cigarettes were and are sold. In addition to saving cigarette boxes, it is possible to obtain unused boxes to add to your collection by writing direct to the cigarette manufacturers, who often provide them free of charge. This makes the hobby very cheap, because you only need the money for the stamps to send the letters.
It is possible to obtain plastic sheets in which to store and protect cigarette packets, which we believe are of a similar form to those used for cigarette cards, as described in the Guide to Collecting Cigarette Cards.
Collecting cigarette packets is apparently a reasonably common hobby in Argentina. Collectors meet in a public square in Buenos Aires, called "Parque Rivadavia", to buy and exchange packets and swap factories' addresses.
It is possible to obtain packets from companies from all around the world. If people wish to send in any addresses they have (postal, e-mail or web site), we will include them on this site for the mutual benefit of all collectors.
The similarity between collecting cigarette cards and postcards is slightly more than the material on which they are both printed. Cigarette cards, trade cards and postcards are sometimes sold together in large auction lots; hence postcard dealers will sometimes have a handful of cigarette cards for sale, or vice versa. Some postcard dealers are quite happy to swap their cigarette cards for any old postcards you might happen to have, as this is of advantage to both parties concerned.
Phonecards are credit-card sized pieces of plastic which can be used in place of coins in certain payphones up to the value of the card. These have become collectable because there are a number of "special issues" featuring various pictures on the card. The main similarity between the hobby of collecting such cards and cartophily is the means of storage of cards: the most common way seems to be in the plastic sheets used to hold medium sized cigarette cards.
Cartography (or chartography) is the term given to the art of drawing maps. Despite the similarity of the words there is no relation to cartophily.
The word cartomancy may be confused with cartophily because of their similar spelling, but it actually refers to fortune-telling using playing cards.
Some people seem to confuse cartophily with philately (collecting postage stamps and other material relating to postal history), perhaps because the latter term is more commonly known. Again, there is no other connection between the hobbies.
While stamp collectors may be flattered to be considered philanthropists, those who habitually do good deeds may not hold the inverse opinion. There is potential for confusion between philately and philanthropy, although that is another matter entirely.
Sources of information include the Collins English Dictionary.
Thanks to James Morton for proof-reading and editing the section on customisable card games and to Rofeld Daniel Eduardo for the information on collecting cigarette packets.
This page was last updated on 11 December 2002. © Steve Talbot 2002.
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