Oldest Baseball Card

[The Nasty Nati]

Could also say 1871 Mort Rogers

[oldjudge]

Program, not a baseball card IMO. Please don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with photos or cabinets or pins; I collect them all. They are just not baseball cards.

[oldjudge]

And BTW there is really no argument for the Atlantics CdV being the first baseball card because there are almost surely some team or individual player CdVs that predate it. They may just represent a less well known team.

[ejharrington]

Originally Posted by The Nasty Nati

Could also say 1871 Mort Rogers

Agree. These are the first cards. They are called Photographic Cards, are numbered, and include numerous individual players.

[GaryPassamonte]

Originally Posted by The Nasty Nati

Could also say 1871 Mort Rogers

They were available for sale.

[oldjudge]

LOL, and they are scorecards

[Rhotchkiss]

How about CDVs were baseball cards before there were baseball “cards”. The Atlantics piece is a picture pasted on board (they had no better technology), it’s no larger than a modern day baseball card, and it clearly was intended to display players. In other words, they are are effectively prototypes or earliest versions of something later perfected; I am sure that exists with everything ever created and it’s early “stagedness” does not disqualify it from being what it later became

[GaryPassamonte]

The 1871 Pearce team cdvs were also a "set" and were available for sale.

As can be seen from this thread, opinions differ on what a basebal card is, but it is fun to rehash it again.

[oldjudge]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

How about CDVs were baseball cards before there were baseball “cards”. The Atlantics piece is a picture pasted on board (they had no better technology), it’s no larger than a modern day baseball card, and it clearly was intended to display players. In other words, they are are effectively prototypes or earliest versions of something later perfected; I am sure that exists with everything ever created and it’s early “stagedness” does not disqualify it from being what it later became

I think CdVs evolved into baseball cards but are not baseball cards themselves. Kind of like the evolution of apes to humans. I appreciate that there are different points of view and it is really immaterial since they are all in the broader class of collectibles.

[benjulmag]

My view on this question has evolved over time. I now regard the Jordan & Co. CdV of Harry Wright as the first baseball card. My reasoning is as follows.

The 1863 match featured 2 cricket games and 1 baseball game (between the NY Knickerbockers and the Brooklyn Excelsiors). Except for Harry Wright, every other player has only one known solo image. Harry Wright, in contrast, has two. In one of them he is shown holding a cricket bat with a ball on the floor. In the other, he is holding the ball and there is no bat, and he is also wearing a cap. This suggests to me that the purpose for the two images was to promote the two separate aspects of the Grand Match, cricket and baseball, with the ball-only image representing baseball.

As to the question why this should be regarded as a baseball card more than a ticket, the reason is that patrons could purchase entrance via a non-photographic ticket for half price (25 cents, versus 50 cents for the photographic pass). The fact someone was willing to pay twice the price to purchase the photographic ticket means that what the person was paying extra for was the baseball image, and it is for THAT reason that I regard it as a baseball card, which I define to be a "card-sized" baseball image available to the general public issued for commercial purposes.

In regard to the argument that because the Jordan & Co. CdV also serves a ticketing purpose, it should be regarded as "less" of a card than N167s, which does not have a dual purpose, I point out the following. The primary purpose of N167s was to sell cigarettes. When someone purchased a N167, that person's focus was more likely the cigarettes, the baseball card being the ancillary item to the tobacco product. In contrast, because admittance to the Grand Match games could be obtained more cheaply by purchasing a non-photographic ticket, in that instance the person was buying the baseball image. Accordingly, by that line of reasoning, one could reasonably regard it as more of baseball card than a N167.

[oldjudge]

A lot of assumptions but at the end of the day it’s a ticket. I’ll continue to believe that the first baseball card was issued in 1886 and I think, but an not positive, that the N167 series was the first issued that year.
Now why does it matter what you call the item? The Atlantics CdV or the Grand Match ticket are both great collectibles but to my way of thinking not baseball cards. Certainly, others can have different points of view.