19th Century Trade Cards

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

I need to do some research, is there a good resource?

[trdcrdkid]

A good online resource is http://www.tradecards.com/, run for the last 23 years by Ben Crane. There are a lot of articles on specific types of trade cards, illustrations of cards in various categories (under "Victorian Scrapbook"), and links other resources, including books about trade cards, most of which are out of print.

One of these books, "Victorian Trade Cards" by Dave Cheadle, was published in 1996 and is probably the best overview of and introduction to trade cards. Unfortunately, it's out of print, but you can find it online for about $30. Dave Cheadle has an eBay store, "Dave's Great Cards Galore", at https://www.ebay.com/str/oldcardsatd...eatcardsgalore, where he sells trade cards and trade card resources. These don't include his 1996 book, but they do include a couple of his more specialized trade card books as well as back issues of "Advertising Trade Card Quarterly", which Dave co-edited for its entire 1994-2001 run. Dave also has a relatively new site, "Victorian Card Hub", which he launched a couple of years ago at https://victoriancardhub.com/. It has some useful articles, including some that were originally published in ATCQ.

The late Ron Schieber compiled detailed checklists of many types of trade cards, including massive lists of thread cards and meat cards that have been invaluable in my own collecting. His widow Diana still sells these checklists, including a list of the lists that she might send you for free. Her e-mail is diana.scheiber@gmail.com, and she's on eBay as madmoneyetc.

If you have any specific questions, I might be able to help. I've been collecting trade cards for the last 25+ years and have around 10,000 different ones, plus a pretty good reference library on trade cards and related paper ephemera.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Wow, that's a lot of info! I actually did better than I thought on my own. Took me a while to track down one in particular because it has a baseball line score, scorecard on the back so I wasn't calling it a trade card. Turns out it is a Brownie and the tailor from Allentown, PA who used the card must've given them out at games. But I'm sure all the info you just gave me will come in handy in the future! It's what I love about the auction business, you get to learn something almost every day!

[trdcrdkid]

Does it show brownies playing with a giant baseball? There were three sets of stock cards like that, with four, five, and six different pictures. The latter two have captions, while the four-Card set has no captions and no lithographer identified. Ron Schieber’s checklist of baseball trade cards has all the details, and might be a good resource to get if you deal with baseball-themed trade cards often.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

Does it show brownies playing with a giant baseball? There were three sets of stock cards like that, with four, five, and six different pictures. The latter two have captions, while the four-Card set has no captions and no lithographer identified. Ron Schieber’s checklist of baseball trade cards has all the details, and might be a good resource to get if you deal with baseball-themed trade cards often.

Yeah it's brownies and a giant ball captioned "A Panic-er" Most of what I deal with would be sports themed, and most of that baseball. THanks again for all the info!

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Yeah it's brownies and a giant ball captioned "A Panic-er" Most of what I deal with would be sports themed, and most of that baseball. THanks again for all the info!

OK, that's from the set of 5, which are the most common. All of the baseball-themed brownie trade cards are stock cards, meaning they were used by many different advertisers, who would imprint their name on the front or back of the card. Custom cards were made for just one advertiser, and generally had the company name integrated with the image somehow.

You might want to e-mail Diana Scheiber and get Ron's list of baseball trade cards. I think it costs $30, but it's worth it, with lots of color illustrations.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

A good online resource is http://www.tradecards.com/, run for the last 23 years by Ben Crane. There are a lot of articles on specific types of trade cards, illustrations of cards in various categories (under "Victorian Scrapbook"), and links other resources, including books about trade cards, most of which are out of print.

One of these books, "Victorian Trade Cards" by Dave Cheadle, was published in 1996 and is probably the best overview of and introduction to trade cards. Unfortunately, it's out of print, but you can find it online for about $30. Dave Cheadle has an eBay store, "Dave's Great Cards Galore", at https://www.ebay.com/str/oldcardsatd...eatcardsgalore, where he sells trade cards and trade card resources. These don't include his 1996 book, but they do include a couple of his more specialized trade card books as well as back issues of "Advertising Trade Card Quarterly", which Dave co-edited for its entire 1994-2001 run. Dave also has a relatively new site, "Victorian Card Hub", which he launched a couple of years ago at https://victoriancardhub.com/. It has some useful articles, including some that were originally published in ATCQ.

The late Ron Schieber compiled detailed checklists of many types of trade cards, including massive lists of thread cards and meat cards that have been invaluable in my own collecting. His widow Diana still sells these checklists, including a list of the lists that she might send you for free. Her e-mail is diana.scheiber@gmail.com, and she's on eBay as madmoneyetc.

If you have any specific questions, I might be able to help. I've been collecting trade cards for the last 25+ years and have around 10,000 different ones, plus a pretty good reference library on trade cards and related paper ephemera.

A favorite.

[1880nonsports]

Ron (RIP) did have nearly every list of every trade card and accumulated by his account30,000++ trade cards. His last compiling of the BB cards expanded on the Keetz (sr.) seminal work on BB trade cards. I would suggest looking around some prior auction catalogs as well - they will help provide a sort of hierarchy in terms of value/scarcity - but mostly the value is in the extensive write-ups in their auction catalogs (hyperbole and all) from some early guys like Kit Barry (still around apparently), Russ Musceri (likely around), Aiglatson Johnny T. and others.
At some point the trade card market mostly ran out of gas. Perhaps it was the rapid price escalation compared with the dwindling amount of quality material that was coming to market. Also the general decline of all collectibles in 2000/2008 along with the economy. Trade cards are still a great insight into the times, they express great artistry rendered by unnamed craftsman and they have all the elements one might look for in a hobby. I have a few tougher base ball examples in my collection. David much more on top of things than I - but happy to add a different eye/perspective to something trade card related should you want it.
BTW - I can't think of any trade cards that are score cards - but there are scorecards with trade cards fronts. I also sold a BB folder from the manufacturer whose front was used as a trade card (Clef series) so sometimes there are grey areas....

[trdcrdkid]

Henry — Russ Mascieri is still around. I’ve bought some stuff from him on eBay recently (username lenelan).

I have Kit Barry’s “The Advertising Trade Card: Information and Prices” from 1981, and his “Reflections: Ephemera from Trades, Products, and Events”, an illustrated 1993 auction catalog. Also all four of William Frost Mobley’s sale catalogs, the last two of which were called “An American Enterprise”. These provide a broad overview of what’s out there, with representative examples, but they’re no substitute for Ron Schieber’s detailed checklists. I agree that Ron’s list of baseball trade cards is invaluable, though there are some things he missed (e.g. two variants of the Merchant’s Gargling Oil cards). By the way, John Kemler, who helped Ron compile many of those lists and who has an even bigger trade card collection, is still around and active as a paper dealer.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

Henry — Russ Mascieri is still around. I’ve bought some stuff from him on eBay recently (username lenelan).

I have Kit Barry’s “The Advertising Trade Card: Information and Prices” from 1981, and his “Reflections: Ephemera from Trades, Products, and Events”, an illustrated 1993 auction catalog. Also all four of William Frost Mobley’s sale catalogs, the last two of which were called “An American Enterprise”. These provide a broad overview of what’s out there, with representative examples, but they’re no substitute for Ron Schieber’s detailed checklists. I agree that Ron’s list of baseball trade cards is invaluable, though there are some things he missed (e.g. two variants of the Merchant’s Gargling Oil cards). By the way, John Kemler, who helped Ron compile many of those lists and who has an even bigger trade card collection, is still around and active as a paper dealer.

I'm seeing an almost monotone Merchant's Gargling Oil and a full color version. Is that the variant you are talking about? I have several full color ones several in outstanding condition.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by 1880nonsports

Ron (RIP) did have nearly every list of every trade card and accumulated by his account30,000++ trade cards. His last compiling of the BB cards expanded on the Keetz (sr.) seminal work on BB trade cards. I would suggest looking around some prior auction catalogs as well - they will help provide a sort of hierarchy in terms of value/scarcity - but mostly the value is in the extensive write-ups in their auction catalogs (hyperbole and all) from some early guys like Kit Barry (still around apparently), Russ Musceri (likely around), Aiglatson Johnny T. and others.
At some point the trade card market mostly ran out of gas. Perhaps it was the rapid price escalation compared with the dwindling amount of quality material that was coming to market. Also the general decline of all collectibles in 2000/2008 along with the economy. Trade cards are still a great insight into the times, they express great artistry rendered by unnamed craftsman and they have all the elements one might look for in a hobby. I have a few tougher base ball examples in my collection. David much more on top of things than I - but happy to add a different eye/perspective to something trade card related should you want it.
BTW - I can't think of any trade cards that are score cards - but there are scorecards with trade cards fronts. I also sold a BB folder from the manufacturer whose front was used as a trade card (Clef series) so sometimes there are grey areas....

Several Robert Edwards lots were key to the identifications I needed to make.

The brownie, I am assuming, was issued with a blank back to allow the companies that used it to add whatever info they wanted. This one was a tailor in Allentown, PA and like I said I assume he gave these away at a local ballpark as advertising.