This seems to have nothing at all to do with sport, but the text mentions dancing and music which are certainly pastimes.
Why we have it here is the fact that the gypsies were the next link in the caravan chain, removing the place to sit and store their worldly goods in from atop a camel to a box on wheels that was pulled behind a horse or pony. And instead of richly coloured silks and fabrics forming the area, they painted theirs, on the outside and inside, and decorated them with metallic shiny objects.
You might well be looking at this card and wondering what I am on about, because the caravan on it is rather invisible. It is actually situated right in the centre towards the top, but it is not at all brightly painted, instead it is a dull yellow canvas, stretched over a hooped frame. In fact, it looks more like the sort of wagon which was used in the Wild West - which makes me think that the artist had never seen a gypsy caravan, and when one was described to them, they filled in the blanks in their mind with what they did know.
The name of the company which issued this card comes from the founder. a Mr. John Arbuckle, who was born in 1839. You may not have beard of him, but he was, at one time, considered, and called "The Coffee King".
His base was at Brooklyn, New York, and even his premises were said to be the marvel of the day, being right on the riverside, which allowed the coffee to be unloaded straight from the ships, and actually, straight from Brazil, where they had been harvested. The truth was that there were lots of other coffee importers, in the same area, almost 90% of all coffee landed at New York. Admittedly he was the largest, but there was another reason, for he was also the king of the pre-packaging industry, grinding and roasting his beans before packaging it into one pound bags and selling it through his network of salesmen. He was also very good at promotion, these cards being just one example, for they were only given out by his salesmen if you purchased his coffee. This set has fifty cards, so it would take fifty purchases to complete a set, almost a year if you bought one a week, by which time the set would almost certainly have been replaced by another.
Is that not the true reason why these early cards are so scarce today....?
By the way there is a checklist of the set, and more information at PastTimeCards/ArbuckleSports, and they also supplied the date, which is rather small for me to see. With a magnifying glass and two pairs of glasses though, the card actually says "Painting Copyrighted 1893". And it does look like all of these cards were from original paintings. The cost of that is unknown.
It also does not really supply us with a date of issue but we may be able to get that if we can find out when Ariosa coffee was first produced, as it says on this card that happened 25 years ago.