Conner, 1st Base, New York, from the Gold Coin series (N284) for Gold Coin Chewing Tobacco

Art Historical Context

This charming 1887 color lithograph comes from D. Buchner Co.’s Gold Coin, one of the commercial baseball card sets issued as a premium with chewing tobacco. just over three by one-three-quarter inches, the card features “Conner, 1st Base, New York,” portraying athlete in the uniform of era’s growing professional. Produced in New York, these small prints were tucked into tobacco to encourage repeat purchases, turning ephemera into cherished collectibles. The image created through commercial lithography, a technique that allowed bright, affordable color reproduction of drawings for mass distribution. Though in scale, such cards helped popularize baseball imagery across the country and documented the sport’s rising cultural status in the late nineteenth century. Today, this example resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’sick Collection, where it preserves both the visual history of American athletics and the inventive advertising practices that shaped early consumer culture.

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...