The first article on card collecting?

[tim_uk]

OK, so no flood of very early articles, so far. Time is on our side.....

But, to keep the thread alive, here's an interesting convergence of the earliest hobby pioneers....

Around 1935, the UK hobby of cigarette card collecting was now becoming well-established. The Cigarette Card News was published monthly by the London Cigarette Card Company, with issues starting in 1933.

And, in the USA Jefferson Burdick started writing in Hobbies. His first article (of 8 in Hobbies) was in December 1935. All these articles can be found here courtesy of Old Cardboard.

Separately, Lionel Carter was writing about baseball cards in Kaw Chief Stamp Journal. An article from 1937 is here, courtesy of Tom Bobblitt.

In the UK, Collector's Miscellany, October 1935 (here), managed to include all 3 journals - as shown in the screenshots below. Now what's the odds of that?

[Leon]

Thanks for posting those. Very interesting to some of us

Originally Posted by tim_uk

OK, so no flood of very early articles, so far. Time is on our side.....

But, to keep the thread alive, here's an interesting convergence of the earliest hobby pioneers....

Around 1935, the UK hobby of cigarette card collecting was now becoming well-established. The Cigarette Card News was published monthly by the London Cigarette Card Company, with issues starting in 1933.

And, in the USA Jefferson Burdick started writing in Hobbies. His first article (of 8 in Hobbies) was in December 1935. All these articles can be found here courtesy of Old Cardboard.

Separately, Lionel Carter was writing about baseball cards in Kaw Chief Stamp Journal. An article from 1937 is here, courtesy of Tom Bobblitt.

In the UK, Collector's Miscellany, October 1935 (here), managed to include all 3 journals - as shown in the screenshots below. Now what's the odds of that?

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by Leon

Thanks for posting those. Very interesting to some of us

I agree, enjoyable & informative

[swabie2424]

I just finished up reading "Ming Condition" so these articles feathered in perfectly. I'm a research professional (entirely different field,) but these types of articles scratch me right where I itch.

It's clear we owe quite a lot to Burdick's early work. Amazing how much love and effort he put into all of this before just about anyone else was hip to it.

[teza11]

Early baseball guides and books would probably be a good place to dig-out some of the earliest card collecting references. Here's a one-pager from 1962 covering some of the earliest publications.

Jeff

[Leon]

It depends on how we define collecting as to which article could be earliest. I am sure there are articles about kids/adults collecting Old Judge cards 100+ yrs ago. Now if we are talking about an organized card hobby then that is different. In the US Burdick and Wagner were two of the earlier ones to promote the hobby

Originally Posted by teza11

Early baseball guides and books would probably be a good place to dig-out some of the earliest card collecting references. Here's a one-pager from 1962 covering some of the earliest publications.

Jeff