Colorful pair of Hall of Famers from the 1888 H.D. Smith & Company issue. These colorful die-cut cards have been known as "Scapps Tobacco" cards for years mostly due to a miscommunication when the cards were being cataloged for a baseball card encyclopedia in the 1970s. No company called Scapps Tobacco was known to exist however and after following a lead several years ago we were thrilled to discover a Cincinnati-based company called H.D. Smith & Co. who issued these German-produced die-cut cards in packages of gum in 1888. That makes these along with the G&B Gum cards the oldest gum cards known to the hobby. Both cards are extremely attractive collector-grade examples with a variety of slight but noticeable condition flaws on the card fronts long with paper loss and other staining on the reverse from scrapbook removal. The Thompson card also exhibits some red ink writing on the reverse. Still two attractive Hall of Famers from this long-misunderstood set.