Baseball card

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Topps Baseball cards from the 50s, 60s and 70s

A baseball card is a small card printed on heavy paper stock, featuring one or more baseball players. The typical format for a card is to have an image of a player on the front, with information such as statistics on the back. While baseball cards may be of any size, the standard size in the industry is 2-½ inches by 3-½ inches (on most cards, the image is oriented vertically so that 2-½ inches would be the width, and 3-½ inches the height).

Early history

With the development of photography, baseball teams began to pose for group and individual pictures, much like members of other clubs and associations. Some of these photographs were printed onto small cards similar to modern wallet photos. As baseball increased in popularity and became an openly professional sport during the late 1860s, a sporting goods store named Peck and Snyder began producing trade cards featuring baseball teams. Peck and Snyder sold baseball equipment, and the cards were a natural advertising vehicle. The Peck and Snyder cards are sometimes considered the first baseball cards.

Typically, a trade card featured an image on one side and information advertising the business on the other. Trade cards featuring baseball players were used by a variety of businesses, even if the products being advertised had no connection with baseball. Advances in color printing increased the possible appeal of the cards. As a result, different types of cards might use photographs, either in black-and-white or sepia, or color artwork, which might or might not be based on photographs.

Although the function of trade cards had much in common with business cards, the format of baseball trade cards also often resembled that of playing cards. Some early baseball cards could be used as part of a game, which might be either a conventional card game or a simulated baseball game. While most modern cards are purely collectibles, the concept of cards that allow for a game format still recurs periodically.

Tobacco cards

Honus Wagner

Starting in about 1886, baseball cards were often included with cigarettes, partly for promotional purposes and partly because the card served to reinforce the packaging and protect the cigarettes from damage. In the baseball card hobby, these are generally referred to as tobacco cards. For a few years, many different tobacco companies produced baseball cards.

As the American Tobacco Company bought out other tobacco companies to develop a monopoly, the tobacco cards quickly disappeared. They were later reintroduced in the 1900s, as American Tobacco came under pressure from antitrust action and Turkish competition. The most famous, and most expensive, baseball card is a rare Honus Wagner card from this period. The card is from the T206 set, but exists in very limited quantities compared to others of its type because Wagner forced the card to be removed from printing. Although it is widely believed that Wagner did so because he refused to promote tobacco, the primary explanation lies in a dispute over compensation for Wagner, one of the star players of his day.

While tobacco cards were being reintroduced, other companies also began producing baseball cards. Sports magazines such as The Sporting News were natural entrants into the market, and the addition of candy manufacturers reflected a shift toward a younger target audience for the cards. Caramel companies were particularly active, and baseball cards were among the first prizes to be included in Cracker Jack boxes. However, the economic effects of World War I soon suppressed baseball card production.

The modern sports card industry

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Reverse side of a baseball card listing player statistics

The blow to production from World War I was compounded by the Black Sox scandal's blow to baseball's public image, and cards were not produced in significant quantities for more than a decade. In the 1930s, baseball cards finally began to reappear with various candy products. Beginning in 1933, a chewing gum company named Goudey began producing cards, and gum became the product predominantly associated with baseball cards. Goudey produced larger sets of cards than usual, and numbered them to facilitate collecting. Goudey also released a new set annually for several years to coincide with the cycle of baseball seasons, until World War II curtailed baseball card production once again.

This time baseball cards were resurrected by Bowman Gum, a former competitor of Goudey in the 1930s. However, another company that sold bubblegum, Topps, soon added baseball cards to its product line as well. The two companies competed for consumers, but also for rights to the baseball players featured on their cards, with each company trying to sign players to exclusive contracts to appear only on its cards. After several years of this, Topps bought out Bowman and enjoyed a largely unchallenged monopoly for more than two decades.

While Topps was the dominant nationally-distributed card brand, various regionally-produced team sets, usually found within packages of foods such as bread and hot dogs, were produced at times for particular teams. From 1961 to 1963, single-sided cards were produced by the Post Foods Company in the U.S. and Canada, printed on the backs of the boxes of both Post-brand breakfast cereals and Jell-o gelatin dessert mixes. (For 1962 only, Post also produced a football set, featuring players from the two countries' professional leagues within each respective country.)

The Topps monopoly ended in 1981, as Fleer and Donruss issued baseball card sets in that year. Topps sued both companies, but a court ruled that Topps' exclusive rights only applied to cards sold with gum. During the following years a number of other companies, such as Score in 1988 and Upper Deck in 1989, entered the market, saturating the hobby with cards until the 1994 players' strike caused a decline in interest and industry consolidation. In the meantime, the competition brought many innovations, such as improvements in card quality and measures to discourage counterfeiting. Companies also released multiple brands of cards, as well as artificially rare and unique cards, to appeal to different types of collectors. In 2001, Wizards of the Coast introduced MLB Showdown, the flagship game of its Showdown Sports series of trading card games, adding a twist to traditional baseball cards by making them into a playable game. Also, Topps has created games with its Topps Total and Hot Button sets.

Starting in 2006 there will again be only two companies marketing and selling baseball cards: Topps and Upper Deck. Fleer went bankrupt, and Donruss lost the MLB license. However, Upper Deck bought Fleer, and the company will be putting out products with the Fleer name.

External links

• CardPricer.com - Knowledge is Power
• Vintage Baseball Card Forum
• Illustrated History of 19th Century Baseball Cards
• Cycleback: Judging the Authenticity of Early Baseball Cards