Perhaps the first collectable cards were cigarette cards; sets of cards of famous footballers and people that makes up a set.

However, the smokers themselves didn't really want to keep these cards, so many of the cards we still have nowadays are from children's collections. Furthermore, they are no longer being produced as such, so any football cigarette card is valuable from age.

Nowaday's cards are being produced as "collector's cards" in sets with standard, embossed and foiled cards of different availabilities. However, irony is lost on the makers of these, as anything that says collect on it is worth nothing as a collectors item, as they are produced in such quantities so as to be ten a penny, but they're still nice to look at.