Australian rules football card


An Australian rules football card is a type of trading card relating to Australian rules football, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. These cards feature one or more Australian rules football players. Cards are almost exclusively found in Australia as no top-level leagues are present outside the country.

History

The first Australian rules football cards were produced in conjunction with Goodwin & Co's Old Judge Cigarettes in the late 1880s. In the set were Australian celebrities which included Australian rules footballers from Victoria and South Australia. The known players featured in the set were:
  1. Norman Richards - Adelaide
  2. George Rowley - Adelaide
  3. George McKenzie - Ballarat
  4. Tommy Allen - Carlton
  5. Tommy Leyden - Carlton
  6. John Daly - Norwood
  7. Dick Houston - North Melbourne
  8. Joey Tankard - North Melbourne
  9. William Hannaysee - Port Melbourne
  10. Peter Burns - South Melbourne
  11. Sonny Elms - South Melbourne
Other companies that issued earlier football cards were W.D. & H.O. Wills in 1905, and Sniders & Abrahams.
W.D. & H.O. Wills also released illustrated sets displaying clubs flags and colors through the Capstan brand.
In the 1930s, the Australian division of British Godfrey Phillips Co. released a set of football cards. By the same time, Hoadleys, a local confectionery company, released a set of illustrated cards. Another confectionery company, Clarke-Ellis, also released its own set of cards.
Other companies that launched cards sets in the 1930s were Pals Periodical, Plaistowe & Co., Carreras, Giant Licorice Cigarettes, MacRobertsons and W.D. & H.O. Wills, among others.

Popular sets

The most popular set of Australian rules football cards are often the considered to be the Scanlens cards.

Current producers