Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football & Sporting Memorabilia
Held on Friday, Saturday & Sunday
10th, 11th & 12th April 2026
Lot 864
Estimate: £8000/12000
Hammer: £15000
W.G. Grace. An unusual and very early original trade card depicting Grace on a shield shaped Union Flag emblem published by lithographer J. Baines of 68, Carlisle Road, Manningham, Bradford, the card being produced in 1883/84. The card has a head and shoulders image of Grace with title ‘W.G. Grace’ below and ‘J. Bains, Lith, Manningham, Bradford, Yorks’ below the title. Printed advertisement to verso, ‘£100 a year given in prizes. Buy Baines’s Cricket and Word Competition Packets’. 2.5”x2.75”. Some old staining and unidentified marks, possibly old glue marks? to both sides of the card and some wear with the odd crease otherwise in good condition.
J. Baines Ltd of Manningham, Bradford began producing collectors cards in 1883/84, specialising in cricket, rugby and word-making competition cards, football cards were introduced in 1886 and other sports, golf, hockey, swimming, cycling and military cards were added to Baines’s range in the 1890’s . The earliest cards made by Baines Litho in Manningham (Bradford, England) include two different cards of W G Grace, made in 1883-84, this card and a further card with ‘Gloucester County Cricket Club’, added, the two Grace cards, the Union Jack card being of an earlier series identified by the hand engraved typo ‘Bains’, to the front of the cards in that series, rather than the corrected, slightly later ‘Baines’ and on the Gloucestershire’ card, the Yorks’ in the address has been removed indicating that this a slightly later card than the Union Jack card. So this Union Jack card of Grace is probably the first produced by Baines and among the first sports cards ever made, anywhere in the world.