Who Was America’s First Baseball Card Collector?

Next year we will celebrate our 35th year as a dedicated collector of rare baseball memorabilia and rare high grade baseball cards.

Over the course of the past 10,000 days we have talked with thousands of dealers and collectors, accumulated the largest collection of baseball card magazines and newsletters in the world, and tracked selected auction results from than 600 baseball memorabilia auctions.

While we are proud of our collection, what we have enjoyed most is the opportunity it has presented to study the history of baseball, and the history of the baseball memorabilia business.

It is our hope to complete a fully illustrated memoir about our hobby experiences which will focus on the collectors, early hobby activity which heretofore has not been well documented, and our experiences with infamous dealers and collectors . We will also look closely at the history of 100 organizations whose memorabilia and baseball card production shaped the hobby between 1900 and the present day.

In our view no topic will be as interesting than to dig back through our correspondence, and conversations and look at the early pioneers as well as to create our own list of The Hobby 200.

It is with this thought in mind that we want to share a brief biography of the person who Irv Lerner, in his legendary book, “Who’s Who in Card Collecting” named as the first great collector. This man was one of the original six members of the Baseball Card Collectors Hall of Fame (1969-70).
His Hobby Hall of Fame entry, in part, reads:

Walter Corson Glenmore, PA (1900-1966)

“Walter Corson was not only one of the first known card collectors, but he also had one of the largest collections including 616 different complete sets, plus 500 0ther complete sets among his 158,000 duplicates. …He wrote numerous articles and worked along side his friends, Charles Bray, Buck Barker and Jed Burdick to develop series check lists.

Walter was also a talented athlete, playing minor league baseball as a first baseman. In fact, in 1925 he led the Arizona State League in batting. He was invited to the Yankees training camp in St. Petersburg, but another young first basemen, Lou Gehrig, had the first base spot secured. After his baseball career ended, he served as a scout with the Cleveland Indians for eight years.

Sadly, in 1958 Colson learned he was suffering from cancer, he decided to run a classified ad in the Card Collectors bulletin which read:
“Due to my recent cancer operation and the uncertainties of life, I am putting my entire collection up for sale.

It was not long, before another legendary collector decided to purchase that collection. That collector was Frank Nagy.

We hope you enjoyed this rare piece of early hobby history. If you have any questions or exceptional items for sale or trade, please contact us at:

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