Have you ever wondered about the history of baseball cards?  I have.  After doing a little research, I found out that there is quite a bit of history behind the cards that evolved into today’s Topps and Upper Deck card issues.  Here’s what I found.

The first cards to come into existence were called “cabinet cards” or “cartes de viste”.   A photograph of a baseball player (in those days they probably called them “base ball players,”) was pasted onto a cardboard backing.  The purpose of these cards was pure nostalgia.  They did not serve a commercial purpose in the sense that today’s baseball cards do.  These cards came about in the 1840s to the mid-1860s. 

In the late 1860s, trade cards started to come about.  These were cards that companies would use to promote their business.   A sporting goods store by the name of Peck and Snyder was one of the first to associate baseball with the trade cards.  You would find the picture of the baseball player or scene on one side of the card, and on the other you’d find the advertisement for the company.  

Trade cards, which were not limited to baseball, became a popular form of advertising in the late 1800s.  Some collectors of these trade cards would paste the cards into a scrap book. 

In the mid-1880s, baseball players were often featured on cigarette advertising cards.  This served a dual purpose; to keep the cigarette packs from bending with the stiff cardboard, and to promote their products and associate them with the ever growing popularity of the game of baseball.   Some of the popular tobacco or cigarette cards of this era include Old Judge put out by Goodwin and Co.,  Allen and Ginter (whose name Topps has brought into the modern era,) Kimball, Yum Yum, Buchner and Co., Four Base Hits and S.F. Hess. 

In the early 1900s, candy makers began to get into the trade card game, along with the tobacco companies.  One of the popular trade card makers of this time was the American Caramel Company. 

The tobacco companies continued to produce the trade cards, and one of the larger tobacco conglomerates, the American Tobacco Company, produced one of the most popular sets for old baseball card collectors in 1909:  the T206 White Border Set.   This was a 514 card set issued over three years, which included one of the most sought after baseball cards ever.  The Honus Wagner T206 card has since been found and sold for millions of dollars, as well as having a popular book written about it.  It has been said that since Wagner objected to smoking, this card was pulled from the set, making it very rare, and in good condition, very valuable.  One of the most popular and competitive eras in baseball card production took place in the early 1900s.  In addition to the popular T206 set, this era saw the American Caramel Company E90-1 set, the 1914 Cracker Jack cards, the 1911 M116 Sporting Life set, the Zee Nut cards by the Collins-McCarthy company, the E107 Breisch-Williams set, and the 1911 T3 Turkey Red Cabinet cards.  Most collectors know about the T206 set, and consider it the standard bearer of this era. 

From the time of World War I, until about the mid-1930s, there was a big lull in production and collection of baseball trade cards.  Some candy and ice cream companies produced baseball cards in the late 1920s, but they did not have the popularity of the cards from the early 1900s. 

1933 saw the next popular baseball card set hit the market, the 1933 Goudey Gum 240 card set.  This vibrantly colored set included the first Hall of Famers, featuring the likes of New York Yankee greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.  By this time, the gum companies had taken over the mantle of top baseball card producers, from the tobacco companies.

The onset of World War II brought another dip in card production however.  The next significant set of baseball cards was not put out until three years after the war ended in 1948.  In that year, one of the gum companies who had come to prominence, the Bowman Gum company, produced it’s first set.  The sold the cards themselves along with a stick of gum (sound familiar?).  In 1951 they produced a set which included Mickey Mantle’s sought after rookie card.  Bowman was the leader in baseball cards of this era, until the Topps company bought them out in 1956. 

The year 1952 brought Topps into the burgeoning baseball card industry.  The Topps 1952 Mickey  Mantle card is the T206 Wagner equivelant of it’s era.  It is regarded as the best card to own from the post-war era. 

For quite some time after Topps bought out Bowman, they were the unchallenged industry leader, offering wax packs of five or six cards for five cents.  (They also had one cent, one card packs).  Topps went to a 2.5 inch by 3.5 inch card size in 1957, which became the de facto standard for baseball card sizes. 

While Topps dominated the industry through the late 1970s, other card makers tried to get around their monopoly without success.  After a lawsuit brought by Fleer against Topps however, a court finally ruled that Topps’ exclusive rights to major league baseball cards applied only to those cards sold with gum.  So Fleer (and Donruss) got around that minor roadblock by creating card packs without gum in 1981. 

For years, starting in the early 1980s, Topps was challenged by Fleer, Donruss, Score.  Although Fleer and Donruss had some success, there was really only one primary challenger to Topps domination of the industry.  Upper Deck put out it’s first baseball set in 1989, to wide acclaim.  Collectors loved the crisp, clear photos and the high quality card material.  It was a notch above the rest in quality.  Corners weren’t bent so easily.  You didn’t find gum stains on the backs of the cards.  There was even a cool little hologram sticker on each card.  Topps had finally met its match. 

The same year that Upper Deck issued it’s first card set, Topps issued a resurrection of the Bowman name.  They put out a limited card set for that year, with Bowman’s name, and slightly larger sized cards.  The following year, Donruss also put out a Leaf brand of baseball cards.

One of the new eras of card collecting was realized in 1997, when Upper Deck began inserting swatches of player’s jerseys and game-used material in certain cards.   These types of cards are very popular today, and depending on the player and material, can come with quite a monetary value.  Cards featuring jersey swatches or bat pieces from players such as Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle will routinely sell for hundreds,  if not thousands, of dollars. 

The addition of cards featuring player’s signatures, as well as parallel cards, have made card collecting much more interesting in recent years.  There has been an influx of collectors coming back into the market, making collecting popular again.  This time around however, you have both the overproduced common set collections, as well as much more limited sets including cards that are even the only card of it’s type produced (1 of 1 cards). 

So that’s it in a nutshell.  If you have anything you’d like to add, please drop me a line or leave a comment.  Thanks for stopping by.   

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Friday, June 6th, 2008 @ 4:30 am Baseball Cards General, Card Value, Investing, New Collector, Old Cards, Terminology, Topps, Upper Deck
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