WHAT IS THE KEELER ROOKIE

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I know that others will disagree with me...

but I don't consider these old cabinets to be true "baseball cards."

They were not distributed to the public or made for advertising or collecting. To me, they are really nothing more than a polaroid picture of a player.

If I take a picture of some major league player and write his name on the bottom... does that then become a "baseball card?" Not to me.

If a baseball player and his family go to Olan Mills for a family photograph... does that then become a "baseball card?" Not to me.

To be a colletible baseball card (to me)... the card needs to have been PRODUCED by some company OTHER than the person who took the PHOTO. In other words, somebody or some comany was USING the IMAGES of the players for ADVERTISING or PROMOTION or SALES.

It also (to me) has to be a "CARD"... and not an 8" x 10" paper photograph that was inserted in a magazine or newspaper. Those are not made for carrying around in rubber bands and trading with your friends. Baseball "cards" should be made for collecting and trading. There is a reason they were called "Trading Cards" forever!

To me, a "baseball card" is something that you had to buy SOMETHING ELSE to get the card... or in more recent years, you had to buy a pack of cards that were distributed by a card company.

Thus, the true Keeler rookie "baseball card" is the 1903 E107 card.

If you want to try and get the earliest "baseball IMAGE" of Keeler... then the 1892 Binghamton team cabinet of Keeler in Mastro is the oldest I have seen.

That's just my two cents.

I would rather have a baseball "card" that is the same type of card that I could have gone to the store and collected in 1895. In other words, if I had been a kid back then, could I have gone to the local store and picked up these cabinet cards that were only available from the photographer's studio? No.

I want to own something that I KNOW at one point ... a hundred years ago ... was pulled out of a pack and cherished by some kid.