I recently purchased some Baines rugby trade cards (real collector stuff, I admit !)

These cards are part of an outstanding rugby trade card collection issued in Northern England at the corner of the XXth century.

You can see more than 300 Baines cards on LDauctions website (actually, it's where I have bought these cards...). Most of them are far nicer that mines... I am a little bit jealous...

I took the freedom to copy/paste the following explanations from LDauction website :

"John Baines of Manningham, Bradford began producing collectors cards in 1887. Rugby, Football (Soccer), Golf and Cricket were the mainstays. However, even school football got a look in! Sold in packets of six, the cards were avidly collected by generations of schoolboys. Baines encouraged the obsession by offering prizes to the person who returned the largest number of cards to his North Parade base. The craze hits its zenith in the 1920s when a staggering 13.5m cards were sold across the North and Scotland. Baines retired when he sold his business to a Barnsley concern in the late 1920s"

Some other Baines cards to see at Ovalballs or here.