Negro League cards never produced or didn't survive
 

It seem to be accepted that there was never a set of contemporary negro league cards produced in the U.S. But the more I think about it, the more I think that there had to be something produced. By the 1940's Negro league ball was a 2 million dollar per year enterprise. Look at the quality of the Negro League year books put on in 45 and 46, and the program for the 46 East-West Game. There was national coverage in black papers like the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier. There were large fan bases in major cities like Chicago and DC. Yet with all of this there was not even a single team issue (I am not counting the postcards that the Indy Clown produced as those mostly pictured the "performers" not the players) was put out. it just doesn't seem to make sense. Is there a set out there that still need to be discovered?

I would love to hear thoughts, rumors and ideas


Jason

Negro League Cards
 

I have collected Negro League items for 30 years. With the exception of Cuban cards and one off minor league cabinets there are no Negro League baseball cards

You have a better chance of having dinner with Elvis on Father's Day that you do of discovering a set. Good luck, and if you do find the cards, please give my very best to Elvis


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com

We don't sell, We buy
 

I know Travis had a Lane College team photo on BST. We did not make a deal, but I think it is still available on there.

Years ago, I lobbied for the possibility that some new-found Cuban issues were possibly legit, but Christoff shouted me down. Even if issues are found, I doubt they would be accepted.

In the days of the Negro Leagues, baseball cards were produced strictly to promote products not to be collected in and of themselves. Since segregation in America lasted throughout the Negro League days, no company would advertise only African American baseball players to promote their product to a population that was still heavily weighted toward Caucasians unless the product was being marketed strictly to African Americans, which I don't believe ever happened. Thus, no cards of Negro Leaguers were ever issued so none can ever be found, minus a real photo postcard here and there.

Phil I would agree with your statement regarding regional or national issues, but it still seems to be odd there there never a set issued for a team. We have to remember these teams made there money barnstorming and for that they needed advertising. Think also of the Page Fence Advertising Trade Card. Also remember that a lot of these teams were supported by owners in the numbers game and in the case of Gus Greenly numbers and clubs. So these some owners did have large customer bases

There is occasional oddball stuff out there. For example, I bought this off eBay years ago. There were two others, Bill Byrd and another that I can't remember. I suspect that they were some sort of newspaper insert but don't know.

Interesting, Kenny. My guess on something like that is a cut-out from a broadside.

Jason:

One thing to remember, for the Negro League teams to promote themselves by having baseball cards printed, there is a cost there and many of the teams were barely able to stay solvent as money was very tight. This may have been why that never happened. Also, the primary means of promotion in the Negro Leagues seemed to be broadsides, probably paid for by the hosts of the games. These were much more prevalent than in Major League Baseball.

Regarding the 1896 Page Fence trade card, that team was probably created with the primary purpose of promoting the Page Fence company (or the company went to the already established team and asked them to promote their product) and thus a card promoting the players would make sense. Throughout the true Negro League era, all of the major teams operated independently with no one representing a company for promotional purposes. Their sole purpose was to excel on the baseball field so I think that was an anomaly and unlikely to have been repeated again.

I think one thing to consider is the time period of the 40's, that you mentioned, is the effect that ww2 had on baseball and the economy in general(especially in regards to paper). Which is one of the reasons that we don't even see a whole lot of Major League issues during that time period. You'd also have to figure that by the time cards started to be produced in larger quantities again, that integration had already begun..

So realistically, I'd think that the cost of producing cards during this time period would've been too much for the negro league teams to take on, and then by the time costs started to come back down, the negro leagues were already in a downfall due to losing many of it's best players to the major leagues..

Just a coupla thoughts..

advertising "cards"
 

I would not be surprised if some paper advertising had been created using the pictures of Negro League stars for businesses that served black customers, and I would expect this to be most likely in the formally segregated South (I'm guessing restaurants as the most probable advertisers). These might well have been limited to ephemera that most of us would not now consider as cards - newspaper ads, etc. Stand-alone advertising flyers would have been reasonable, and those of us with broader definitions of cards might deem those to be cards.
It certainly would seem worthwhile to investigate - Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, and Chattanooga black newspapers would be the most logical starting point. New York black newspapers would be sensible too. Of course, if you were to find in a library archive an ad featuring a Negro League star as a pitchman for some local restaurant, then you'd have to try to find some other copy you could purchase (unless you're Barry Halper, in which case you'd pay someone to steal it). [Granted, you could find a nice niche market in reprints of a newspaper ad if you think you can do it without fear of a copyright lawsuit.]

After faking his own death, Elvis changed his identity so he could continue his work with the CIA. He took all of the Negro League cards with him to a very special place. Someday, he will reveal himself and bring back the cards.

What really happened to Elvis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZ1R4-dxk4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjHyF_5ntp8

(With the immortal Bruce Campbell)

Beat me to is. Gotta love Bruce...:D

No I didn't and no I won't.

Any other thoughts? There were some interesting theories here until the thread got sidetracked.

Sorry, Phil, I couldn't resist. The answer seems simple enough, though, with a much smaller (5-10%) population base with much less disposable income not creating enough of a market to make it worthwhile to produce anything to sell. As for team or stadium issues, they played far fewer games at their home ballparks than their white counterparts, again making for a much smaller potential market.

I've collected Negro Leagues memorabilia for over 25 years now and haven't come across any cards except the earlier mentioned Cuban and Puerto Rican issues. I've spent many hours talking to the old players from the 30's and 40's, the heyday of blackball, and not one of those guys said anything about cards, I made a point of asking.

In my opinion, the one team that was prime for some kind of card issue in was the 1932-36 Pittsburgh Crawfords. Gus Greenlee the owner was a good marketer and would have been the first to issue something like that if the money was there. He had a much bigger pool of cash than the other teams and knew how to spend it. The other teams, including the KC Monarchs and Homestead Grays didn't have that kind of capital to put into a promo card set. Most of the time advertising, including broadsides and scorecards, were handled by the promoter, such as Nat Strong, or if they played in a MLB or minor league stadium by the white team's marketing department through a prearranged set price.

Even the Indianapolis Clowns who lasted into the 60's, didn't have anything like a card set, outside of a specially printed program they sold at games. On the memorabilia side of Net 54 there was a topic about the Negro League pennants you see every so often. There was supposedly a large find of unused ones many years ago so that kind of speaks to how well souviner items sold at games. The fans just didn't have the spare cash.

You would think that there would be many player endorsements in the black newspaper ads of the period, but those too are lacking. Many ads in black papers are just the same white ones you'd see elsewhere. There wasn't the kind of race target marketing that became normal in the late 60's and 70's.

I remember that Bill Wright "card" that Kenny Cole posted when it was on ebay years ago. I think I even bid on it. It's very intriguing and is most likely, as most people have said, cut from a broadside. The picture is from a series of promo shots taken by the team in 1941 and reproduced many times in the black papers of the time. I've never seen that on a broadside but even so I would bet that's where it is from. It's a great find!

Gary:

Lots of useful insight, your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Pennants, pins, scorecards, etc., but nothing of the players. You'd think Paige would have sold and signed cards of himself on his barnstorming tours.

Oops! I made the mistake of quoting a remark made by "the Dorskinds" about one having as much chance of having Father's Day dinner with Elvis as finding an undiscovered Negro League card set. My response was in fun and not at all intended to be critical of Bruce.

Today, I get this Private Message:

"Whilst we are quite certain that you were at the end of the line when it came to distributing grey matter, before you are so quick to be critical, you should note we have one of the largest early Negro League collections in the country. We have donated a number of items to the Negro League Hall of Fame and our collection has been seen in a number of museums and books.

Perhaps your problem is you are drug attic like Elvis. Do let us know when the Big Train gets back on the track.
Bruce"

For the record, I have never been critical of Bruce. In fact, I have enjoyed his posts and respect him as a collector. Clearly, however, he is a paranoid, psychotic, anti-social, humorless nutjob. No, Bruce I am not an attic, nor am I an addict, but I do know how to spell it. I did not dislike you before now.
It is quite obvious that you could not possibly have many friends but here is some free advice. Choose your enemies more carefully.