Tobacco advertising and automobile racing goes back a lot further than Marlboro. Cigarette cards came into use in 1879, the year in which several American tobacco manufacturers began putting small card stiffeners into the flimsy paper packs of cigarettes to protect the contents from damage. At first the tobacco companies were content merely to print their name and address and brand name on these little cards. It was a gradual change from a pictorial element in the advertisement to a full-blown picture which had no direct relevance to the product, but by 1885 the first purely pictorial cards were beginning to appear. In the 30’s a company by the name of Ogden’s Cigarettes produced a set depicting famous races of the 1931 season.
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