Posted By:
honus3415....but only if I was lucky enough to live next door to the chain-smoking old man with no friends or relatives, who had a 20 pack a day smoking habit and took me under his wing because of my angelic nature.
WOW......can you imagine the first mass distribution of hundreds of different COLOR CARDS with pictures that actually looked like the players. That had to be the advent of the first baseball card woody....and a tobacco habit that would kill those first card fanatics by the age of 30. If he had lived through serving in WWI.
Remembering back to seeing my first Babe Ruth card....a 1961 Nu-Card Baseball Scoops and asking the neighbor where he got it...well the rest is history...which if I had all the money I have spent over the years on tobacco I'd could own a GAI 1.5 T206 Honus Wagner (and all the controversy that would go with it). AND if I had all THAT money AND the money I've spent on my baseball card addiction over the years....I could afford to pay the medical bills for all my tobacco smoking relatives since 1909.
No production in any year since has provided a greater change in the landscape of baseball cards, after that we began to care more about who was on the card.
Final answer....1909.
I remember less than most people have forgotten but I still remember more than I really care to.