What Do You Consider the First Baseball Card(s)?

[packs]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

But isn't it just by happenstance of Burdick's taxonomy that OM/SL and PB and Uzit and Piedmont are considered the same set?

And just to make sure I'm not representing your position incorrectly, you would say that regionally distributed baseball cards exist but, by definition, none of them can be considered the first baseball card? So, for example, D310s are in fact baseball cards, but if no other baseball cards had existed prior to 1912, D310s would not be, according to your rule, baseball cards? Or is it just that they would be baseball cards and they would be older than all other baseball cards but that you still wouldn't consider them the first baseball cards?

You are most definitely twisting what I said and trying to apply simple logic for a first to things that came later. All T206's share the same basic design, so even if the designation T206 didn't exist, they are easily identifiable as being from the same overall set.

Regional issues are branches of the same basic card structure: included with a product and distributed to the public as advertisement pieces.

Now I ask you a question: in the realm of the first card and the idea that there must be one universal definition of a card to talk about cards at all, what relationship does a CDV or a cabinet card have with the modern baseball card? If you consider a CDV to be a baseball card, does that make a T206 not a card? Does that make the modern card not a card?

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by packs

You are most definitely twisting what I said and trying to apply simple logic for a first to things that came later. All T206's share the same basic design, so even if the designation T206 didn't exist, they are easily identifiable as being from the same overall set.

Regional issues are branches of the same basic card structure: included with a product and distributed to the public as advertisement pieces.

Now I ask you a question: in the realm of the first card and the idea that there must be one universal definition of a card to talk about cards at all, what relationship does a CDV or a cabinet card have with the modern baseball card? If you consider a CDV to be a baseball card, does that make a T206 not a card? Does that make the modern card not a card?

I'll answer your questions if you answer mine. I promise.

[packs]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

I'll answer your questions if you answer mine. I promise.

I already answered yours. D310's came well after the OJ set, which is what I would consider the "first cards". So by the time they were released, a card had a standard definition and it's not really worth talking about them because they aren't in the contention of being considered the first.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by packs

I already answered yours. D310's came well after the OJ set, which is what I would consider the "first cards". So by the time they were released, a card had a standard definition and it's not really worth talking about them because they aren't in the contention of being considered the first.

I may have missed your answer then. Sorry about that. My question was whether you would consider D310s the first baseball cards if no other baseball cards existed prior to 1912.

[packs]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

I may have missed your answer then. Sorry about that. My question was whether you would consider D310s the first baseball cards if no other baseball cards existed prior to 1912.

Yes, because there would have been no such thing as a baseball card. That's like saying would I consider a computer from 2019 the first version of any computer ever so long as none existed before it.

Let me rephrase your question in a better way: in a time when only CDV's, cabinet cards, scorecards, and stereoviews exist, and the D310 set came out as the first series of baseball cards to feature players in a designated set and be included with a product for promotional sale and offered to the public as a means of advertising said product, I would consider that to be the iteration of the modern card.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by packs

Yes, because there would have been no such thing as a baseball card. That's like saying would I consider a computer from 2019 the first version of any computer ever so long as none existed before it.

Very good then. We're in agreement. Why then should it only be in the hypothetical/counterfactual example that a card that was not nationally issued would be considered the first baseball card but not so in reality?

And to answer your questions:

"In the realm of the first card and the idea that there must be one universal definition of a card to talk about cards at all, what relationship does a CDV or a cabinet card have with the modern baseball card?"

Mainly that it meets some but not all of the criteria that make up the usual checklist for classifying something as a baseball card.

"If you consider a CDV to be a baseball card, does that make a T206 not a card?"

No.

"Does that make the modern card not a card?"

No.

[darwinbulldog]

I think basically we agree on everything except the utility of the regional vs. national distribution concept for designating something as either a baseball card or the first baseball card. To me it makes about as much sense as saying the card has to have the color green on it to be considered a baseball card as to say that it had to have been distributed nationally.

[packs]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Very good then. We're in agreement. Why then should it only be in the hypothetical/counterfactual example that a card that was not nationally issued would be considered the first baseball card but not so in reality?

And to answer your questions:

"In the realm of the first card and the idea that there must be one universal definition of a card to talk about cards at all, what relationship does a CDV or a cabinet card have with the modern baseball card?"

Mainly that it meets some but not all of the criteria that make up the usual checklist for classifying something as a baseball card.

"If you consider a CDV to be a baseball card, does that make a T206 not a card?"

No.

"Does that make the modern card not a card?"

No.

I don't know how else to explain this to you. I interpreted the question as being "what was the first iteration of the modern baseball card" and that to me means distribution. You don't have to buy Topps at one bakery in Buffalo, just like you didn't have to buy your OJ cigarettes at one store in any one city. If the word national bothers you, then look beyond the semantics of the word and see the words widely distributed.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by packs

what relationship does a CDV or a cabinet card have with the modern baseball card?

The way CDVs were used in general is fairly close to the way some more modern cards were distributed. When I started years ago, those more modern cards weren't considered to be cards either, but often are now.

CDVs were typically bought by the subject to give away to friends and family as keepsakes and reminders of the subject. The number bought would depend on how well off you were, and how many people you figured on giving a photo to. As I understand it, famous people would sometimes get requests for a photo. I don't think a player would have treated CDVs any differently.

Some studios had permission to sell copies of CDVs of famous people to the general public. Others probably just copied what they could.


So they're almost a direct parallel to the cards created for players to send to fans, which come in a variety of types, from team issued, to stuff like the George Burke postcards and photo stamps, and ones the players had made for themselves.