Origin of Rip Cards in Allen & Ginter?

I have always wondered how the idea of Rip cards came about....and considering I am a big collector of the most common fruit of the ripped Rip card... the ext mini....i am not opposed to the act of a Rip card being ripped.....  side note to add... to rip or not rip is inspired by posts from kemp, kershaw and martin collector and most importantly its asked by the dutch card guy himself... any way....in playing on ebay I had somehow stumbled upon this.... interesting item which peaked my curiosity in finding out more about Allen and Ginter  and "old rip" tobacco which sent me to google....and well not much actual info that I could find...but I did come across these tins.....


Is this brand of smoking tobacco the reason why we have rip cards in Ginter products or is this just one huge coincidence.... I have no idea....if this is what inspired us to have Rip cards.... I am impressed.