Wood, Left Fielder, Phila., Stealing a Base, from the Gold Coin series (N284) for Gold Coin Chewing Tobacco
Medium
Commercial color lithograph reproducing drawing
Dimensions
Sheet: 1 3/4 x 3 1/16 in. (4.5 x 7.7 cm)
Classification
Prints|Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick
Accession Number
63.350.222.284.103
Tags
Art Historical Context
This charming 1887 color lithograph comes from the Gold Coin series (N284), a set of small trading cards produced by D. Buchner & Co. of New York as promotional inserts for Gold Coin Chewing Tobacco. Measuring just 1¾ by 3 inches, the card depicts Philadelphia left fielder “Wood” in the act of stealing a base, capturing a dynamic moment of early professional baseball. Such cards were among the first widely distributed baseball ephemera, issued to encourage brand loyalty among tobacco users. In the late nineteenth century, baseball’s rising popularity made it an ideal marketing tool for manufa...
About the Artist
D. Buchner & Co., New York · 1850–1900
D. Buchner & Co. was a New York-based tobacco manufacturer prominent in the American market during the 1880s, best known today for its Gold Coin Chewing Tobacco brand and the vivid trade cards the company inserted into its product packaging to drive consumer loyalty. The firm was one of numerous tobacco companies that, during the boom years of American commercial printing, recognized the marketing...