1913-14 Sniders & Abrahams (Series I)

1913-14 Sniders & Abrahams (Standard Cigarettes) VFL – Shield

Collection: 60 cards
Scarcity rating: 7

Collectors know the 1913-14 Sniders and Abrahams issue, Series I, as the “Shield” set. It keeps the off-field look introduced in the Star series: players again appear in civilian clothes rather than club colours, in the same slightly reduced head-and-shoulders portrait. The frame is now shaped like a shield and set against bands of team colours, which run diagonally on some clubs’ cards and form a chequered pattern on others. The 60 cards cover nine VFL clubs. As with the Star set, every player was printed with two backs, one advertising Standard cigarettes and the other Peter Pan. The Shield set marks the end of an era. With the First World War approaching, it became the last football series Sniders & Abrahams ever produced, closing out a decade that had begun with the first Australian Rules football card set in 1904. The Standard name returned to footy cards in the 1930s, but by then the cards were made by Carreras rather than Sniders & Abrahams, so this set remains the final chapter of the original series.