The Early Days Of Collecting
Baseball card collecting in the early 1960s
The Early Days Of Collecting
Though I don’t actively collect baseball cards anymore, I’m still fascinated with the history of what many of us call “the hobby.”
Most historical information about baseball cards focuses on the cards themselves. It’s not hard to find which company created which sets at which time, nor is it difficult to track down checklists, lists of known variations, and, in some cases, even estimated print runs.
But information about the culture of collecting is much harder to come across.
I wrote a few days ago about an old article about Jefferson Burdick from 1955, which you can read in this post:
To my knowledge, this is the first mainstream news article about baseball card collecting. If you know of any earlier, please let me know.
I’ve discovered a few additional articles from the early 1960s that may be of interest.
This one from 1961, for example, should raise at least a few eyebrows among collectors:
Notice in particular that the T-206 Honus Wagner is estimated at $250 in this article. It also estimates that only 6 of those cards survived: we now know that there were a few more.
Then there’s this extremely obscure opinion piece from a rural West Virginia newspaper:
I also wonder how in the world kids in those days completed sets of 200+ cards.
Finally, and most significant, there’s this 1964 feature from Minnesota:
Those of you with eagle eyes will note that Curtis is actually pointing at cards from the 1880s, not 1908.
Finally, this article is simply a classic:
Kay is right about one thing: those cards don’t do any good if you pack them up and leave them in a cupboard.