While flipping through a March 1994 Christie’s East Sports Memorabilia auction catalog, I ran across one of the most visually impressive early trading card advertising pieces I’ve ever seen: a 1910 T225 Khedivial “Prize Fight Series No. 101” boxing cards advertising poster.
The poster pictures the entire 25-card set in full color and advertised that collectors could receive “A Full Set Framed” for $1.00 from The Khedivial Co. Auction houses have described it as an extraordinarily rare display piece, and honestly, it’s hard to disagree. There are very few surviving 1910-era advertising pieces that actually picture an entire trading card set like this.
What’s also interesting is how the market for the poster has evolved. Christie’s estimated one at $4,000-5,000 in 1994, though they later sold exanples for $1,150 and $1,265 in the 1990s. REA sold one for $812 in 2006, Lelands sold another for $2,081.58 in 2007, and Heritage sold one for $6,405 in June 2025.
The poster may also help explain the origin of the hand-cut blank-backed T225 cards that periodically surface. Pre War Cards notes that some collectors believe those examples may have been cut from posters or the framed premium display itself (which I can’t find any evidence of).
And perhaps most interestingly, there doesn’t seem to have been just one advertising format for the issue. Lelands also sold a different 1910 T225-related cardboard advertising “banner” in 2010 for $298.75, promoting Intermission Little Cigars and Arabs Turkish Cigarettes. All of the posters I mentioned sales for before promoted Oxfords and Turkish Whiffs along the top.
As you can see, that piece featured the same 25 fighters but is from the Surbrug Co., suggesting the advertising surrounding the T225 issue may have been broader than most collectors realize.
Happy collecting!
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