FT/FS: Various Vintage Non-Sports Cards

[Savard18]

I have absolutely no idea where to put these cards, but I have a bunch of totally random vintage non-sports cards for trade or sale.. I buy unsearched vintage sports card collections and they almost always have some random non-sports cards, and I generally toss them off to the side and allow them to accumulate, and once I have enough I try to trade them off for vintage sports cards or sell them.

I know a little bit about some of these cards/sets, but I don't even know where to begin with some of the others, so I'll do my best and list as much info as possible or make my best assumptions (if I have any).. As a vintage sports card collector I feel comfortable dating some of these cards, but others - I just have absolutely no clue, so if I get anything wrong, please feel free to correct me and add any info you may have.

Ideally I'd like to sell or trade everything as one large lot/collection - if not - I'd like to sell/trade all of the cards together as a lot from each particular set.

If you're looking to trade, I'm pretty open-minded but I'm mostly interested in vintage baseball, football, basketball or any hockey. I'm not opposed to anything from 1980 to the present just as long as it's quality non-base Rookies & HOF'ers - preferably parallels, inserts, serial numbered and game used/auto's.... Basically I have absolutely no interest in your 1988 Donruss, 91 Topps or 89 Score (unless it's a Griffey RC or something), but if you have a 1995 Donruss Elite Frank Thomas /5000 or a fairly rare Barry Bonds insert or parallel I would certainly have interest in both - I would presume most collectors know what I mean... And if anyone has any Topps baseball from 1970-1975 - especially commons - I'd be very interested, I'm building those sets, I'm very close to completing most of them so I'm looking forward to getting them done so I can just focus on my 60's baseball sets. So if you have 70-75 Topps baseball - even if you don't see anything you like below - I have plenty of traders, so I'm confident we could get something done, so please PM me for a list of my set needs.

PM with any questions, or if you have any info on any of these sets please share because I'm curious.

I suppose I'll start with the most baffling of the bunch. I have no idea what these "automobile cards" are or if they're even "cards" in the traditional sense. Presumably these are busses from the early 20th century - perhaps 1905-1925 maybe?, I found them in vintage top-loaders in a multi-sports collection that also had various other non-sports tobacco cards and other pre-war items and memorabilia.. I believe they're some sort of tobacco card from the teens or early-20's, on face value they look like images of busses that have been cut from photographs, but they're on an odd type of card stock - even odder - they all appear to be the exact same bus but on closer examination they're not, there are subtle differences between all of them, I think only one of them is a duplicate.. These are certainly mysterious, and I've never seen anything quite like this.. And they are/were top-loaded, so someone was clearly collecting these at some point.. The top-loaders are very old, definitely from the early 80's or older (not sure when top-loaders first became a "thing", but they appear to date to whenever that was)..

So if anyone has an idea what these are, please I'd appreciate the input.









1970 Monogram Models "Hot Rod Cards" 1/24th Scale







1937 Philadelphia Gum/Puzzles - Wild West Series






1969 Topps Man On The Moon




1960's Wonder Bread - Walt Disney Stickers & 1970's Unknown Fabric Stickers



1966 Topps Batman #31 "Threat Of The Catwoman"





1973 Topps Wacky Packages (Tan Backs)



Tobacco Cards, Unknown Years

[Savard18]

Unknown Year - Sweet Caporal Tobacco Card

[Rookies_and_More]

Awesome cards!

[Rookies_and_More]

In the early to mid-20th century, transport enthusiasts and the general public often collected cut-out images of vehicles, including buses, trams, ships, and trains. These images could come from:

• Cigarette cards or tea cards — small printed collectibles issued by tobacco or tea companies.
  
• Illustrated magazines — people sometimes cut out interesting photos from periodicals.
  
• Souvenir albums — companies would publish albums that people filled with pasted-in pictures they acquired separately.
  
• Scrapbooks — hobbyists would keep a personal book of clippings, especially of modern technology of the day.

Alright — here’s how we can narrow it down.
1. Paper & Thickness

• Cigarette cards: Printed on stiff card, smooth on the back, often with text describing the vehicle.
  
• Magazine clippings: Thinner paper, often slightly yellowed with age, possibly rough or fibrous at the torn/cut edges.
  
• Souvenir album inserts: Glossy or semi-glossy thin card, sometimes with glue residue on the back.

2. Back Printing

• Cigarette cards almost always have something printed on the back (series title, description, manufacturer logo).
  
• Clippings from magazines or books will have part of another image or text on the reverse.
  
• Souvenir album images sometimes had blank backs if they were meant to be glued in.

3. Cut Edges

• If they have perfectly straight edges, they were likely factory cut (cigarette/tea cards).
  
• Uneven or scissor-cut edges suggest a magazine or book clipping.

4. Size Clues

• Cigarette cards: typically 6–7 cm tall (2½–2¾ inches) and narrow.
  
• Trade/tea cards: similar height but often a bit wider.
  
• Album clippings: can vary widely.
  
  
  Blank backs already rule out most cigarette cards and magazine clippings — that points strongly toward cut-outs meant for a scrapbook or a collector’s album.
  In the early 1900s–1920s, companies like Wills’s, Ogden’s, and various transport publishers issued albums where you’d glue in pictures bought or redeemed separately (sometimes from packets of tea, cocoa, or biscuits). These pictures were often printed on thin card with a blank back, exactly like you describe.
  Your bus pictures look like they were:
  
  
  • Printed on thin card (rather than glossy modern photo paper)
    
  • Cut out along the outline to give a more realistic shape in the scrapbook
    
  • Likely part of a series showing different vehicles
  
  If they came from an album, there might originally have been captions printed in the album itself, so the pictures didn’t need any text on the back.
  If you give me the exact size of the buses, I might be able to match them to a specific transport album series from the 1910s–1930s. That could confirm exactly where they came from