Denny, 3rd Base, Indianapolis, from the Gold Coin series (N284) for Gold Coin Chewing Tobacco

Art Historical Context

This charming 1887 color lithograph belongs to the Gold Coin series issued by D. Buchner & Co. of New York as a promotional giveaway inside packages of chewing tobacco. Measuring just over three by one-and-three-quarter inches, the card depicts Denny, third baseman for the Indianapolis team, capturing the growing popularity of professional baseball in post-Civil War America. Tobacco companies quickly recognized the sport’s appeal and began inserting small, colorful player portraits to encourage repeat purchases, transforming these everyday advertisements into some of the earliest American baseball cards. Printed through commercial lithography, the image reproduces a drawing with bright, flat colors suited to mass production. Though modest in scale and originally intended as disposable ephemera, such cards helped shape the visual culture of the national pastime and documented the athletes who became household names. Today the print resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, where it illustrates how commercial imagery and sporting history intersect within the museum’s holdings of works on paper.

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...