1865 Brooklyn Atlantics CDV for sale

[drc]

When you get to early baseball cards, there's a lot of gray area, unanswerable questions, philosophy and personal sentiment. It's baseball card theory.

Many early CDVs of famous people were indeed marketed and sold to the public by the photographer, and famous people often handed out CDVs of themselves to general public fans. I've seen photographer advertising and order letters between famous people and studios that document this. Charles Dickens, as one example, ordered CDVs that he would send to fans who wrote to him. Those CDVs were definitely intended to be collected or otherwise kept as souvenirs or mementos. It also says you could own a Dickens CDV that was owned by Dickens.

[barrysloate]

Jay- I agree regarding the Grand Match Harry Wright. Since it is part of a set of cricket players, you need go no further. That eliminates it from being a baseball card. It may be the first trading card ever issued, and it may be the first cricket card ever issued. Those are both likely. But it is not a baseball card.

But I bet it is about to be called one.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by drc

When you get to early baseball cards, there's a lot of gray area, unanswerable questions, philosophy and personal sentiment. It's baseball card theory.

Many early CDVs of famous people were indeed marketed and sold to the public by the photographer, and famous people often handed out CDVs of themselves to general public fans. I've seen photographer advertising and order letters between famous people and studios that document this. Charles Dickens, as one example, ordered CDVs that he would send to fans who wrote to him. Those CDVs were definitely intended to be collected or otherwise kept as souvenirs or mementos. It also says you could own a Dickens CDV that was owned by Dickens.

So, if a player ordered a bunch of photographs from George Burke, and mailed those out when requested from fans, they would be ... baseball cards? The only difference from the item you describe is the thickness of the paper. And a photograph is often thicker than a baseball card;e.g-Type 1 coupons are thinner than the postcard-stock photos that Burke produced for players in the '30s and '40s. Not all were postcard stock, but that was an option (I have some).

I'm just messing with you - for the most part I'm in agreement with Barry's list, but then again, I don't own any expensive baseball cdv's or postcards, so I have no financial incentive to define those as baseball cards.

[drc]

Card, as in the physical item itself, is defined differently by different people. Some people don't call something a baseball card simply because they don't think the fits the physical definition of a card. Sweet Caporal pins fit all the rules for being a baseball card except for one small detail-- it's a pin not a card.

For the benefit of those who don't know photography or French, the word carte in carte de visite (aka CDV) literally translates to card. And that's the original 1800s term, not a modern retroactive concoction.

And to reiterate what I said in an earlier post, card and trading card are not one and the same. A trading card has to be a card, but being a physical card does not in and of itself make something a trading card. And baseball card is short for baseball trading card.

[bmarlowe1]

Then there is Rucker's 1988 book, "Baseball Cartes - The First baseball Cards."

[drc]

Lionel Hutz: "This is the most blatant case of false advertising since my suit against the movie The Neverending Story."

[Peter_Spaeth]

Perhaps we should consult King Azaz's cabinet.

[drc]

What only complicates things even further is back then they referred to Oscar Wilde as a card.