Tobacco card prices, 1944-1957
 

Here are three articles about tobacco cards by Preston D. Orem, published in The Sport Hobbyist in January and March 1957, that should be of interest to people here. The first two are from the January 1957 issue (volume II, number 1). The first one is a brief history of tobacco cards, sports as well as non-sports, which is notable mainly for saying that Charles Bray (then the editor of Card Collector's Bulletin) had over 2,000 Old Judges. I assume those are still in the hobby somewhere -- maybe I even own some of them! Editor Charles Brooks reprinted this article in the February-March 1959 issue of The Sport Hobbyist, after he had started getting it typeset so it looked much more professional.

The second article, from the same issue, is particularly interesting to me. Orem got a hold of the first eight years of Card Collector's Bulletin, from 1937 to 1945, and figured out the average auction sale price of various tobacco (baseball) card sets in 1944-45, when CCB (under Jefferson Burdick) held the first card auctions ever. Orem then figured the average sale price of the same sets in the CCB auctions of 1955 and 1956, and put together a table showing the trends. Very cool, for me at least.

The third article is from the March 1957 issue of The Sport Hobbyist (volume II, number 3). In it, Orem goes through almost all of the baseball N and T cards listed in the American Card Catalogue, comparing the prices given in the Catalogue (I assume the 1953 edition) with the actual market prices he had encountered in buying these cards over the previous year. For some reason he doesn't include T212s, even though he was in California where they would have been plentiful. Anyway, this is also pretty cool, giving the earliest market prices for some of the scarcer N and T sets.

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These are great. This made me laugh...

"the girls are all sizes, shapes, and vary from real beauties to a dame who makes you actually shudder and wonder how any one ever got the idea of putting her on a card"

I have a lot of these 19th century "actress" cards, and while I wouldn't quite put it the way Orem did, it's interesting to see how standards of female beauty back then differed from those of later generations, including today. The vast majority of the women on these cards would be considered "plus-size" models today, but apparently that's what 1880s men liked.

On another note, I hope at least some people find these old articles, and especially the price info, as interesting as I do. If nothing else, they're a nice break from all the drama of the past few days.

I love this stuff ... On this one in particular is very interesting!! It mentions bray having 2000 different n172's...having a t231 up for auction... I wonder who the player was Leon? And the fact that he had never seen T214-t217 is a testament to their rarity .

and I never would have thought that kids parents would cut off the tobacco advertising !

True that. I have a Mayo with the bottom cut off. It never occurred to me that could be the reason why somebody did it.

I have several Old Judges with the ad cut off the bottom.

I saw that....my guess is Carson Bigbee...

great stuff, thanks for posting it!!

Oh and there was a mention of b/w trade cards prior to 1870 if I remember correctly...what does this refer to?

I think he's probably referring to tobacco trade cards, because he then contrasts them with insert cards. But he's just guessing on the dates, because most trade cards are not dated. The earliest copyright date I've seen on a trade card is 1872, I think.