Who Was America's First Card Collector?

Who Was America’s First Baseball Card Collector?

Next year we will celebrate our 35th year as a dedicated collector of rare baseball memorabilia and rare high grade baseball cards.

Over the course of the past 10,000 days we have talked with thousands of dealers and collectors, accumulated the largest collection of baseball card magazines and newsletters in the world, and tracked selected auction results from than 600 baseball memorabilia auctions.

While we are proud of our collection, what we have enjoyed most is the opportunity it has presented to study the history of baseball, and the history of the baseball memorabilia business.

It is our hope to complete a fully illustrated memoir about our hobby experiences which will focus on the collectors, early hobby activity which heretofore has not been well documented, and our experiences with infamous dealers and collectors . We will also look closely at the history of 100 organizations whose memorabilia and baseball card production shaped the hobby between 1900 and the present day.

In our view no topic will be as interesting than to dig back through our correspondence, and conversations and look at the early pioneers as well as to create our own list of The Hobby 200.

It is with this thought in mind that we want to share a brief biography of the person who Irv Lerner, in his legendary book, “Who’s Who in Card Collecting” named as the first great collector. This man was one of the original six members of the Baseball Card Collectors Hall of Fame (1969-70).
His Hobby Hall of Fame entry, in part, reads:

Walter Corson Glenmore, PA (1900-1966)

“Walter Corson was not only one of the first known card collectors, but he also had one of the largest collections including 616 different complete sets, plus 500 0ther complete sets among his 158,000 duplicates. …He wrote numerous articles and worked along side his friends, Charles Bray, Buck Barker and Jed Burdick to develop series check lists.

Walter was also a talented athlete, playing minor league baseball as a first baseman. In fact, in 1925 he led the Arizona State League in batting. He was invited to the Yankees training camp in St. Petersburg, but another young first basemen, Lou Gehrig, had the first base spot secured. After his baseball career ended, he served as a scout with the Cleveland Indians for eight years.

Sadly, in 1958 Colson learned he was suffering from cancer, he decided to run a classified ad in the Card Collectors bulletin which read:
“Due to my recent cancer operation and the uncertainties of life, I am putting my entire collection up for sale.

It was not long, before another legendary collector decided to purchase that collection. That collector was Frank Nagy.

We hope you enjoyed this rare piece of early hobby history. If you have any questions or exceptional items for sale or trade, please contact us at:

Bruce Dorskind
America’s Toughest Want List
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com

[joeadcock]

Thank you for the information.

Frank

[Leon]

We were fortunate enough to have a few dealings with Walt's best friend, Dr.James Lowe (who almost single handedly wrote the book on postcards), from an ebay transaction with his son and board member, Jeff Lowe. I believe Mr.Lowe was with Walt when he passed away and/or also might have performed the memorial service for him. As I recall Mr.Lowe was in the ministry too. (Don't hold my feet to the fire for any of this, this is what I remember him telling me, but it was several years ago). We were able to acquire Mr.Corson's lists of cards and here is a letter he had written to him. This "hoard" was also where the oft shown Jefferson Burdick letter(s) came from. I think all of these guys were the first real card collectors in America, along with Lionel and the other early collectors previously mentioned in another thread.

(shown many times but still apropos and neat)

Leon

Great post


If you can make copies (if they are not too fragile) we would love to see them.

Would be great to have a post on collectors correspondence


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com

[vintagechris]

Great reads guys.

[tbob]

Gilliam Squires had to be one of the first collectors of PCL cards. His stamped Obaks are all over the place from 1909-11.

[vrechek]

I'm writing an SCD article on the Card Collectors Hall of Fame as described in Who's Who in Card Collecting 1970 by Irv Lerner, Bob Jaspersen, and Richard Reuss.
I have photos of Burdick, Barker, Bray and Carter, but no photos of John D. Wagner, EC Wharton-Tigar, Walt Corson, Edward (Robert) Payne, or Preston Orem. Does anyone out there have a .jpg of any of the missing 5 which I can borrow for the story?
George Vrechek

[oldjudge]

I think Bruce is talking about the first person who amassed a major collection, not the first person to collect cards. Obviously, as soon as cards came into existence collectors came into existence. My guess is that the first major card collector, even of U.S. cards, was not American. In the U.K., card collecting developed as a hobby way before it did here.

[wonkaticket]

Jay agree the folks overseas were into Cartophily well before us that's why there are so many overseas issues such as Leibig and others that go way back even as far as 1872 and were not just limited to tobacco and candy...as trade inserts.

Cheers,

John

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Ted- I have never heard the Connie Mack collecting story could you elaborate!

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by vrechek

I have photos of Burdick, Barker, Bray and Carter, but no photos of John D. Wagner, EC Wharton-Tigar, Walt Corson, Edward (Robert) Payne, or Preston Orem. Does anyone out there have a .jpg of any of the missing 5 which I can borrow for the story?
George Vrechek

No image, but I do remember an early SCD price book (3rd volume?) in the early 80's that had a photo of an elderly John D. Wagner that was included in a short article of him reminiscing on his collecting, and how he bought a suit once mainly because of the large grouping of tobacco baseball cards that was offered as a bonus.

Brian