1888 N224 Kinney Military Partial Set (483/662)

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1888 N224 Kinney Military Partial Set (483/662)

Presented is a tremendous collection of approximately 470 cards (of the 622 in the massive complete set) from the 1888 N224 Kinney Military tobacco series. Kinney Military cards are considered in many ways to be the nonsport-card equivalent in significance and intrigue to the N172 Old Judge or T206 baseball-card sets for their eras. It is a huge set, of great significance as one of the most ambitious and popular card issues of the day, and with many intricacies with reference to rarities, including virtually impossible-to-find cards. To the best of our knowledge, no one has ever completed a set of N224s. The most complete collection we know of is that of the legendary Sir Edgar Wharton-Tiger. His collection of 621 different (of 622!) is permanently housed in The British Museum. The one card he is missing, "Hussar of France," is an extreme rarity with only 2 known examples. Issued with Kinney‚s tobacco, these cards feature magnificent full-color illustrations of men dressed in military uniforms of various nations from a variety of time periods. Approximately half the set features American military uniforms and the rest features foreign military uniforms from around the world. As far as condition goes, the collection presents in overall Vg to Ex condition when viewed from the front, with about 10% better and 10% lesser. There are, however, faint pencil marks (appearing to be numbers relating to the checklist) or light glue residue visible on the reverse of approximately half of the cards. While this is especially common, and tolerated, among nineteenth-century cards, if professionally graded, these cards would grade modestly despite their far superior appearance. This is one of the largest collections we have seen of these classic nineteenth-century tobacco cards, and is simply a remarkable and outstanding foundation for carrying on the challenging quest for completion of the N224 Kinney Military set.Total of approx. 470 cards.