Movie Cards and Collectibles

Updated for 2025 … I’ve removed many of the more common galleries and checklists from the site, but heartily endorse The Movie Card Website if you’re looking for info and an incredible assortment of checklists! I’ve left several of my favorites, pages I use for my own reference when creating sales listings, and most of the non-card pages (supplements, premiums, etc.) Here’s what remains:

Movie Cards and Collectibles to 1919

Movie specific collectibles needed the star system. While some earlier sets are featured in the pages linked below they are theatrical based sets which often did include several personalities who later became movie stars. As the decade turned to 1910 postcards were the mostly likely place to collect a movie face.

But our hobby really began to bloom about the time D.W. Griffith rose to greatest prominence mid-decade. The war soon nipped our collectibles in the bud but they did prosper, especially in America, during the mid and late 1910s. Trading cards were issued with a variety of products and even as souvenir box sets. Fans began to request photos. The movie house itself offered a wide variety of ephemera. The movies and baseball were popular subjects for promoting a wide variety of products from food to, of course, tobacco.

Our earliest popularly collected film stars featured on cardboard and ephemeral items include Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish; our most famous vamp, Theda Bara; Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle; and tragic names such as Wallace Reid, Mabel Normand and Olive Thomas.

The following pages describe each issue named in the title and include both a gallery and checklist naming and often showing either a complete set or all of the cards from that set that I have handled.

1920s Movie Cards and Collectibles

The War is over. Silent film continues to advance as stories are better told and more artfully filmed. The flapper arrives as the ’20s begin to roar. Jolson sings in The Jazz Singer and everything changes. Early talkies are typically static with clumsy dialogue often delivered by actors who never had to be heard before. Meanwhile silent film continues to advance with many of the greatest titles releasing near the end of the decade. Nobody cares.

Peace and prosperity and plenty of card and collectible issues to roll off the presses worldwide! The best sets feature handfuls of our beloved silent clowns: Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd; our best American cowboys: Mix and Hart; young flappers: Clara Bow and Louise Brooks; great action and dramatic stars: Pickford, Fairbanks, Valentino, Swanson; and the most famous character actor of them all: Lon Chaney.

1930s Movie Cards and Collectibles

The Great Depression takes hold. Talkies improve by leaps and bounds the first few years. New stars are made as Hollywood raids Broadway for more talkie talent. In mid-1934 the Production Code is enforced and while movies are forced to become tamer the talent behind the camera become more creative. The Golden Age flourishes. Many of our most iconic stars take flight. The decade closes with a year many film fans still consider the best of all-time.

The post-war card and collectible boom of the 1920s rolls right into the pre-war 1930s. Like the ’20s the 1930s offer a wide variety of tobacco card issues from across Europe. Popularly collected sets of cards were issued picturing all of our favorite 1930s film stars: Garbo, Gable, Harlow, Dietrich highlight many sets. Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Myrna Loy and many others make a strong second rank. Laurel & Hardy provide a key card to many sets in the first half of the decade. Sometimes the Marx Brothers show up to do them one better.

1940s Movie Cards and Collectibles

Another War shakes up the movie industry. Many stars are off to fight. Many new ones are created. Creativity abounds on the screen with several classics using the war itself for a backdrop. Our movies grow darker, in character and setting, as the style later known as film noir fills the screen. Beyond crime other subject matter becomes more complicated, even more mature, despite the continued restrictions of the Production Code. The movies are growing up. The 1950s bring a lot more color and glitz.

War rationing provides a death blow to many collectibles, most notably so many of those beautiful British tobacco cards we’d enjoyed since the last War. There’s a boom in American movie ephemera with popular premium issues being offered with everything from food products to, most naturally, movie magazines. The 1950s bring a boom in colorful trading cards from Holland and surrounding countries. American non-sports sets largely revolve around the television set while annual baseball and other sporting issues generally dominate the market. Still, some interesting items have been issued worldwide as the list below reveals.

Movie Collectibles

Movie Cards and Collectibles