[GaryPassamonte]

Originally Posted by G1911

1) Lack of recognizable names today restricts the 19th market to people who are interested in that period, eliminating the #investor crowd. There is also not an iconic card to drive interest to the rest of the set. most hobbyists know T206 Wagner, 1952 Topps Mantle's, 33 Lajoie's, even things like T206 Cobb's. There are some great and very expensive 19th century cards, but there's not really an iconic card to the rest of the hobby that draws more eyes to it.

2) It's a struggle for set collectors. Sets are for the most part extremely rare and difficult, most of them practically impossible for even the wealthier. The easier ones are usually not really baseball sets like N28/N29. Those of us primarily interested in set collecting thus tend to stick with other things. I'm sure someone has an example of a set for which this is not true, but it is mostly true.

3) Maybe it's just me, but a mangled T206 is still a nice looking image. Fading has ruined the appearance of a large number of the surviving 19th century cards that are mostly photographic. Later photographic cards mostly do not have this problem.

4) Tied to 3 somewhat, the grading companies appear to ignore or mostly ignore fading and stock damage (frequently slabbing excellent old Judge's which are obviously heavily faded and damaged) further discourages the #invest, and also some mid-grade collectors. The registry is also less of a factor, a little bit of cards being "too rare" going on here.

5) It is difficult to dip one's toes into the 19th century water. Collectors tend to start at the low-end of the scale, picking up a common T206 or something as a first of an era. This is still a pretty cheap "that's cool" whim buy, you can get a T205 or T206 for less than $20, a Goudey for less than $10 to get a card from an era collectors today didn't witness and have memories of. 19th century baseball, there isn't such a common low-price buy-in to serve as a starting point and have that "that's cool" turn into "wow, I want to get more of these!". Most people don't start with the marque cards outside of the #invest crowd, which other factors discourage.


I like 19th century baseball, I love seeing the cards posted here, but I don't have many myself primarily for reason 3, I love set-building and sets are generally either too rare or too expensive for me to justify doing. Just some thoughts.

Excellent analysis.