Posted By:
barrysloateI've viewed the collection many times over the years, including trips with board members Jay Miller and Ted Zanidakis. I can fill everyone in on a few things. When the collection was finally completed in the 1960's, it was readily available to anyone who wished to make an appointment. Until about 20 years ago (Burdick finished mounting the cards around 1962) it wasn't looked at very often and was only known to a relatively small number of people. It's hard enough to find the room, hidden behind musical instruments, and I don't think too many people knew it existed. As the baseball hobby gained popularity in the 80's, the Museum found themselves swamped with too many visitors and I remember one of the curators telling me that too many people were handling the cards and they feared damage and theft. Their response was to make it much more difficult to see the original albums, unless you were doing research for a book, and they decided to take portions of the collection and simply frame them and put them up on the walls for viewing. However, you could only look at what was on the wall at that time. Years ago Jay Miller and I went to view the Old Judges- it's a huge collection with an Anson in Uniform included- but all the cards were pasted in so it is doubtful they will ever be removed and displayed. Other cards were placed in albums differently and can be removed more easily, and those are probably the ones they show to the public. However, it has been several years since I have been there so they may have now instituted a new system. I think the sheer number of requests they were getting to see the collection just became a nuisance. Everyone in the room always seemed a little too busy and felt the baseball card crowd was an imposition.