Several questions about 19th century baseball cards & collectibles

[mouschi]

I find myself getting lost (and enjoyably so) into researching baseball cards & collectibles from the 19th century. No matter how deeply I look, I am unable to find anything written about several questions I have. If you have time to weigh in on one, several, or all of my questions below, I'd be grateful!

1) I read the thread/argument about what the first baseball card was. I'm trying to find what significance other specific cards were. What about N172 Old Judge cards? Were they the first photographed multi-team "set"? What about N28 Allen & Ginter? Were they the first nationally distributed? I'd love to hear more about what makes these two sets (N172 & N28) significant / what "firsts" they are.

2) It seems that some of the earliest "baseball cards" could be CDVs/Trade Cards/Cabinets/etc. from the 1860s-80s. Basically actual pictures that were mounted onto some sort of backing, with many of them being photographs of whole teams. Aside from the advertising trade cards, what was the purpose for these - were they meant to be collectible by baseball fans? Were they taken to be replicated by woodcut for publications?

3) Regarding these CDV/trade cards/cabinets - how many would generally have been made? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

4) What about woodcuts from Harpers, Leslies, etc? Were these collected by baseball fans, or were they generally discarded? I'd imagine if the "print run" of items in #3 above wasn't enough to cover all of baseball fandom, the woodcuts would serve largely as the sole collectibles of players for their fans.

I'm sure i have other questions, but I think these are the main things of the top of my head. I look forward to hearing from the Net54 folks on these questions!

[barrysloate]

Asking what are the first baseball cards will get you numerous answers, and a lack of agreement. So maybe that question doesn't matter anymore.

And nobody knows how many CdV's or cabinet cards were made, so more useful information would be how many have survived. That number is generally small, and the demand for some is great. Following auctions will help you get a sense of how scarce they are.

[mouschi]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Asking what are the first baseball cards will get you numerous answers, and a lack of agreement. So maybe that question doesn't matter anymore.

And nobody knows how many CdV's or cabinet cards were made, so more useful information would be how many have survived. That number is generally small, and the demand for some is great. Following auctions will help you get a sense of how scarce they are.

Yeah, I've kind of given up on determining the first baseball cards ... i tend to think a publicly distributed set with single players may be it, but not sure.

Thanks for weighing in!

[drcy]

Some CDVs and cabinet cards were sold commercially, but most were just normal photos. The ones that were most likely sold commercially will be of famous subjects and well known commercial galleries such as Sarony, Mathew Brady, Carl Horner, J.Wood and others.

Most non-commercial CDVs and cabinet cards are unique or close to. Most other cabinet cards and CDVs are rare, perhaps a handful at most at most. Some CDVs of obviously commercial subjects such as Abe Lincoln and Queen Victoria are fairly plentiful.

Offhand, I can't think of a non-baseball card CDV or cabinet card that has more than a few tens in existence.

Harper's and Leslie's woodcuts were very much collected-- that was almost the point of the magazines--, but are pretty plentiful.

Most well known lithograph trade cards are as plentiful as normal baseball cards, but there are rare ones.

A post I wrote for SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee a year or two back: Are CDVs and Cabinet Cards Baseball Cards? Yes, No and Maybe

[mouschi]

EXCELLENT information, thank you, David! In my head, I'm trying to figure out what was attainable by the average baseball fan. I see some pics/cdvs of teams that include King Kelly, Cap Anson, etc. or even the Creighton single CDV and just don't see all that many kids back then having them. It seems to me as though the closest thing to a collectible as a baseball card for them would be the woodcuts (pre old judge, allen & ginter, that is) - at least from the perspective of things that were fairly readily available like cards are today. If cards weren't available when I was a kid, I'm sure I'd flock to newspapers/magazines myself with a pair of scissors in hand!

Originally Posted by drcy

Some CDVs and cabinet cards were sold commercially, but most were just normal photos. The ones that were most likely sold commercially will be of famous subjects and well known commercial galleries such as Sarony, Mathew Brady, Carl Horner, J.Wood and others.

Most non-commercial CDVs and cabinet cards are unique or close to. Most other cabinet cards and CDVs are rare, perhaps a handful at most at most. Some CDVs of obviously commercial subjects such as Abe Lincoln and Queen Victoria are fairly plentiful.

Offhand, I can't think of a non-baseball card CDV or cabinet card that has more than a few tens in existence.

Harper's and Leslie's woodcuts were very much collected-- that was almost the point of the magazines--, but are pretty plentiful.

Most well known lithograph trade cards are as plentiful as normal baseball cards, but there are rare ones.

A post I wrote for SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee a year or two back: Are CDVs and Cabinet Cards Baseball Cards? Yes, No and Maybe

[drcy]

Lithograph comic trade card collecting was a huge hobby in the 1800s. You can still find old albums at antique stores with them pasted in. Scaps-- die-cut pieces--, were similarly collected with trade cards.

A Look At Victorian Sports Trade Cards, Scraps and Die Cuts