Burdick Collection Visit

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Posted By: warshawlaw 

I visited the Burdick Collection at the Met for two and a half hours on Friday. Here are my impressions:

Getting into the collection is like getting into the white house. You announce yourself at the front desk of the museum, where they check your ID and call up to the prints department to verify your appointment. You are issued a pass for the library and given directions. The library room of the prints department is behind a locked door. You ring a doorbell and they buzz you into the antechamber, where they take your bags, coat (if you haven't checked it), camera, pens, etc., and you have to produce your ID again, fill out a card with your info, and read and sign a page-long rules and regulations list. Once all that is done, they lead you into the reading room.

The reading room looks just like the reading room in any library; a couple of big tables with chairs. Only in this reading room, attendants hover and you cannot pull books at will from the shelves. The attendant sets up a velvet placemat in front of you and (because the collection is housed in books) two velvet covered bolsters on either side of the mat. The book is placed inside this rig so that it never lays flat, only in a "V".

You have to know exactly what you want to see and you more or less have to direct the curators to the proper volumes. Burdick wrote and printed a guide to the collection (it is in the same typeface and paper as the ACC, so I know it was printed) breaking up the collection by volume. If you are not very up on your nomenclature, you are dead in the water. For example, Book 202 is described as "A&G 1-48, 63-65" (not exactly, just as an example) and that's all the detail you get from Burdick. I tried to pre-arrange my viewing by sending them exact set names and numbers I wanted. The head curator told me that they could only ID about half of the sets ahead of time. I was able to locate the rest inside of two minutes just by viewing the book and knowing manufacturer and ACC designation (more on the lack of knowledge of the caretakers later).

Once they know what to get, they go fetch it for you. They roll in a cart with the books of the cards you want to see and they place a book in front of you. You are not allowed to touch the cards (obviously) or to have more than one book at a time. You can turn the pages yourself.

Remember that this entire collection is one guy's stuff, arranged by him. The poor bastard sat there for three years pasting down this stuff, and you could see that as he went on, he got less and less interested in tabbing things. By the time you get into the later albums, there are virtually no tabs at all, which made finding sets a bit of a challenge.

The paramount ground rule I was told of was "no looking at baseball cards." They were very adamant about this. However, the disorganization of the collection is such that you have to look through albums to get to certain sets, meaning that I had to look at baseball sets to find the boxing sets I was there to study, which led to a kind of funny incident. I was looking for the E211 set (York Caramel boxing) and had to go through an untabbed volume loaded with every E card you could think of to do it. The curator came over and said "you are looking at baseball cards." I said "no, I am looking for the E211 set of boxing cards." I started to describe what I was looking for, her eyes glazed over, and I had to keep going. What a shame...

In terms of my research, the collection was very useful. I was able to verify the existence of many cards, found many uncatalogued variations, and was able to flesh out some checklists. Oddly enough, however, Burdick was very spotty on certain sets. He had only 1 T229 Pet/Kopec card and only 2 E211 York Caramel cards.

Now for the fun stuff you all might appreciate: Owing to the organizational issues, I was able to view some of the OJ's, CJ's, E cards, and T cards. It is obvious that Burdick cared more about completion than condition. Cards range all over the place from poor to near mint. The OJ's I saw were organized by team, with an added section of miscellaneous cards, and averaged ex. The CJs were gorgeous--obviously a near mint set. Most of the T cards were strong ex to ex-mt. The T227 Cobb was stellar ex-mt. The Fatimas had lots of cracks and creases. Burdick also had two of the Fatima style PC backed cards, but in a different book--he obviously did not consider them to be Fatimas. The common E cards from the 1920s were all razor sharp sets. The E210 set was all over the place, from poor to ex, mostly vg. The great shame of it all was that every card was friggin glued down, very firmly. the CJ Jackson was obviously an "8" when it was put into place, but is poor now.

I was surprised and saddened by how little the curators knew about the cards (as I said above,they could not even find many of the sets I needed because they did not know Burdick's nomenclature and when I tried to talk cards with them, they obviously had no idea what I was saying). It was sad as well to see just how under-utilized and under-catalogued the cards were. Burdick did a monumental job of collecting and mounting these cards, but a crappy job of cataloguing and indexing them. There are albums with literally nothing to define what is in them other than a single line entry. It appears that no work has been done to see what is in this collection over the last 40 years. In the boxing cards alone, I found literally dozens of unknown cards and variations that have been sitting there for 40 years, ready to be discovered. The head curator even admitted at the end of my visit that they don't know much about the collection. Consequently, a very valuable and very useful resource sits mostly unused and "unloved" in albums in the bowels of the museum.

The trip was an absolutely amazing experience. Burdick's collection is unparalleled and priceless. It also was a thrill to see his writing and his notations right there on the pages he mounted, and to see what he was thinking when organizing the ACC.

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Posted By: Nickinvegas

Adam,
First of all, Thank you for sharing your experience. The Burdick collection is something truly amazing that only a few will ever see.

It is a real shame that they do not have one person who's specialty is the care, knowledge and organization of the collection. I feel bad that, while it seem to be taken care of it is not being cared for.

And what is the deal with not being allowed to look at baseball cards? I know you went there to look at Boxing, but what's the foul?


Thanks Again.

Regards,
Nick

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Posted By: Julie

O GREEN with envy! Yes, was the prohibition on looking at baseball cards because your appointment had to do with boxing stuff?
Burdick sacrificed baseball cards to baseball card history...what a gesture!

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Posted By: JC

Great story... I wish everyone that collects could show their collection in a way that people can enjoy them. Ie.. Internet/Glass showcase/Catalog. I guess when you do something that long and build up such a major collection you don't know what to do with it and just say... Oh well, take it. Thanks for sharing your visit with us!

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Posted By: brian p.

Thanks for sharing your experiences Adam. It is truly a dream of a lifetime for a card collector to get to see such a collection. It is a shame that the actual viewing experience remains so exclusionary and haphazard...just think what could be done by an institition that actually gave a hoot about the collection.

Brian

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Posted By: Julie

I can imagine yakking for WEEKS about it with the people in authority--they really know their stuff. Guy sent me a whole SHEAF of stuff on Radbourne, FREE, and when I ordered a Lefty Williams photo from their library ($25)--nobody had ever ordered one before!--they had to make a new negative, because they didn't have one. Not only was my print original looking, but they did a beautiful job of airbrushing an eye-scratch out of the original photo. Those guys are TOPS.

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Posted By: Rhett

Personally, I have never understood why people donate things to museums. 99% of all things donated to museums end up on shelves and boxes, never to be utilized in a display (some of which end up being sold by the museum in the long run so they can purchase "more important items"). I don't know if it is a way for someone to feel like they have contributed something back to society, but it is a total waste of some great items. In my opinion, if you have an original Rembrandt--sure, donate it to a museum, because they will likely display it for everyone to enjoy. If you have a VGEX 1914 Cracker Jack Set, sell it back into the hobby for those that really care about the cards can enjoy them. Don't condemn those beautiful cards to a long slow death in the hands of curators that don't know a thing about them. This is just my opinion, would like hearing what you guys think.
-Rhett

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Posted By: George Vrechek

I don't know if you has a chance to read my article on the same subject. It is at http://oldbaseball.com/ Under library and then the last article "Burdick Revisited" Our experiences were about the same, but you had a longer "glance" at the older cards.
George Vrechek

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Posted By: TBob

Why couldn't you look at the baseball cards, Adam?

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

I agree that most of the things that are donated to libraries or museums never again see the light of day. What a waste for both the person who put all the effort into assembling the collection and all the potential viewers.

At least if the baseball portion of Burdick's collection was donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame the items would get the reverence and attention they deserve. The bad part is that the Baseball Hall of Fame is a God-awful place to get to.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I never really got any explanation as to why BB cards were verboten, nor did I press for one. MY assumption is that they are off limits because so many have gone missing over the years or because they'd take a beating if everyone who wanted to see them saw them. I also assume that I got into the collection so readily precisely because I wanted to see non-baseball cards (I guess the assumption would be that anyone who wanted to see those cards must be a researcher rather than a card nut). I can also see that it would be very frustrating to the curators (and a big pain in the neck) to have card collectors in the library every day, which you know would be the case if the collection were open. I suspect that this is part of the rationale too.

I think the ultimate problem here is not access per se (after all, museums are trained to see their jobs as preservation of items and that is simply not consonant with repeated hands-on viewings), it is inability to access a very valuable resource by any mechanism other than hands-on viewings. It would be unthinkable to have a box of Rembrandts sitting at a museum uncatalogued, unreproduced and essentially useless for 40 years, yet these cards are treated just that way. This may have to do with the "high art, low art" dichotomy and some snobbery on the part of museum policy makers, I don't know. What I do know is that in the age of digital imaging, it would be simple to photograph each page of select albums and reproduce and disseminate the images, and it is a shame that I had to travel to NYC and blast through a 2 hour appointment frantically scribbling on galleys of my book to checklist the boxing holdings rather than ordering up a CD and viewing them at home.

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Posted By: Joe P.

Thank you for this interesting thread.
Thank you for relating your experience, take and thoughts of your lightning like two hour tour of the exhibit.
It must have been a combination of frustrations and delight during those two hour, but you have to admit, a lot of us would give almost give anything to have been able to inadvertently sneak a peek at some of those baseball cards.
From what you said, it sounds like you were allowed to have a pencil and pad to make your notes, am I reading that right?
Also, making digital images of the cards sounds like a doable situation, did you mention that to them?

Some have said that having the collection moved to the Hall of Fame would be the more fan friendly and logical thing to do.
It sounds logical, but I believe that I've heard where the Hall also has a donation problem.
The problem being lack of display room.
As I understand it, they're loaded with stuff that are still in boxes in their basement. ... Also, things have disappeared from there.
Again, thanks for sharing.
Joe

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Posted By: david

i believe the security measures are a result of several high profile cards being taken from the collection over the years, among them a 33 lajoie. scd did a series of articles on the collection several months ago. i must be amazing to see all those cards.

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Posted By: JOHN NEUNER

HI
GLAD YOU ENJOYED YOUR VISIT TO THE COLLECTION.MY LAST VISIT WAS 7 YEARS AGO. THE REASON YOU COULD NOT SEE THE BASEBALL ITEMS WAS BECAUSE MANY ATTEMPS WERE MADE TO STEAL THEM AND MANY WERE STOLEN.
MY MAIN INTEREST WAS THE "R" SECTION.THESE ITEMS WERE GREAT AND MAINLY COMPLETE.
THIS IS THE NON-SPORT GUM CARDS.
MANY VISITS ARE NEEDED.
GO BACK AND TRY AGAIN.EACH TIME WILL BE BETTER THEN THE LAST.
GOOD COLLECTING
JOHN NEUNER
P/S. THE ONLY THING I WAS DISAPPOINTED WITH WAS THAT THERE WERE NO GUM WRAPPERS

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

can deaccession (sell off) items from a particular collection--especially if it's been donated? Isn't it like 50 years? Or is there no set amount. Wonder if the Met would consider deaccessioning the Burdick collection--it would certainly add funds to their coffers while allowing the cards to enter the public domain. Maybe somehow the HOF could purchase them. It's just a shame that they're bottled up like that with so much potential. Good conservators could probably 'save' many of the glued in cards.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I finally found a copy of this publication. It is the only index that exists of the holdings in the collection. To say that it is less than illuminating is an understatement. The following are typical listings:

Album No. 214--Goodwin 162-168, 172 (part)
Album No. 215--Goodwin 172 (bal), 171, 174

That's it for the most important albums in the collection. Of course, Album 222 and 223 do not suck, either: 222: Buchner (bal), Mayo, Hess 321-331; 223: Hess (bal), Hall.

Oh, and I'd love a day alone with Album 246: Sets T121-T188, Sports T200-T212.

I like candy too: Album 315--E137 - E286.

Next year I need to get into albums 613-621, the exhibit cards. JB had 3,288 Exhibit cards in 1960. I'm salivating already.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Back in the 1980's it was real easy getting in to see the baseball cards. I would make an appointment over the phone and just show up. They were real friendly and would show you pretty much anything you wanted to see. The problem is way too many people started to come in to see the baseball. The visitors were starting to damage the albums, and I'm willing to bet things were stolen too. The 1933 Goudey Lajoie was hanging unprotected hinged by a piece of adhesive tape on the back. God knows how many people got their hands on it.
Finally they just had to put a stoip to the visits. They would only let people in if they had a research project. The last time I went was about six or seven years ago with Jay Miller. It became clear that they were much less likely to want to show the collection. And since all anyone wanted to see was baseball, it just became too big a nuisance. Baseball just became too popular and they must feel all these people coming in are wasting their time.Im sure it's even worse today.

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Posted By: Pcelli60

Did they do a cavity search to ?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I wish Hey, I'm married, whatever I can get, you know

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Posted By: m mac

This is timely given the latest flap at the National Archives. The Met should be restrictive of the Burdick collection given the information that has trickled out regarding its condition during the past 10-15 years. This is the only way that collection will be preserved for serious research 100 years from now. I'd imagine that the Met has millions of items and thousands of finding aids. The Burdick collection is probably not their most valuable collection or even their most important collection. They probably have dozens of research projects ongoing at any time. If Burdick wrote the finding aid, as it sounds likely, only an archivist who has an interest in that collection would know anything specific about the collection. It sounds like the collection is so huge that no one there is willing to spend the imense amount of time required to either learn Burdick's system or re-cataloging the collection. Hence, unless the "hobby" is willing to fund a position for the Burdick collection, it's not going to happen anytime soon at the Met.

Regarding deaccession, if the collection is in their archives, it's probably not going to happen. The collection is one-of-a-kind, and I do not think that the Met requires the funds. (Another good reason not to give your collection to a museum - I hope that Mike Gidwitz doesn't give away his uncut sheet collection to start a musuem because once he's gone, the musuem will probably restrict access to all except the serious researcher of 20th century pop culture printing techniques or some such nonsense).

I have not visited the Met. I have visited archives (not baseball) at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, Columbia U., U of Virginia, Harvard U. Library, and others. I do want to visit the library at the Baseball HOF. In general, I have had the best success examining things I want to see by calling or emailing in advance to learn of restrictions, availability, hours, etc. regarding the particular collection I desire to examine. For most archives, in my experience, checking the web page is not enough. If you just show up, you're in for a world of disappointment. I have found that many places have portions of their collections not readily accessible. If they know you're coming, they might retrieve the items in advance so you do not have to sit around for hours waiting on your request.

To get into an archive building, it's not unusual to have to provide ID as well as register. They probably will not let you into the stacks to examine the collection. Insterad, you'll have to wait in a reading room. To get into the reading room, you have to sign forms that you'll abide by their rules. Usually, you cannot bring anything into the reading room (some places allow you to bring some combination of pencils, electronic equipment or your own papers with restrictions). Once you're in, the archivists usally limit the number of requests outstanding at any time as well as the number of items you have at your table. If you've ever been in a stacks, you know that you'll find things you wouldn't otherwise as well as quickly determine the items you really have to see. This is not going to happen unless you acquire credentials with the particular institution. For instance, to get direct access to the "raw" Burdick collection, you'd probably have to obtain a Ph.D. in art history and employment at the Met in the archives. Maybe maintenance could get in there, too. In comparison, try entering a public law school library and its stacks off the street - it's easy in comparison.

Collections usually have some missing items. It's upsetting and the archivists really do not care since those items probably are misplaced, lost or stolen by previous researchers and the topic is not in the archivists' area of research.

Usually, the archivists do not share your interests or pursuits and so not care about your excitement. Most of the finding aids are incomplete so you're going to be both surprised and disappointed when the boxes and folders are delievered to your table. This is why important documents continued to be uncovered all the time in archives and courthouses across the country. I cannot tell you how many times I have had my excitement met with the archivist's equivalent of "Get lost."

Expect to have your privacy respectfully invaded upon exiting the reading room. You will not obtain the same deference as Mr. Berger - Oh! I think that person took the Wagner card; I'll check after she leaves and then report the incident to my supervisor. For you, some big man (probably) will go through your stuff right there on the spot.

Finally, in addition to making their collections inaccessible to the public off the street, most archives do not have specialists for each and every collection. I have found the National Archives to have the best staff, but those archivists do not necessarily have specific knowledge about the contents of a collection - just the cataloging and location of the collection. The Met appears not to have archivists that research picture cards. If they did, they would probably have a contact who'd share information upon inquiry. If the responding archvist says generally, "Yes, the collection is available. If you tell me what you need to see, you may call it up for you in advance if you tell us when you're coming," she has no clue what's in the collection, what it's about or why your request or their collection is important, just that the collection is present at the archive.

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Posted By: Pcelli60

I always thought that a Museum or some kind of repository for research would be perfect for our hobby. Since, it seems, that so many serious vintage collectors take a devoutly serious approach to it..It really is food for thought..

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Posted By: m mac

I agree, but ...

Most museums have no idea what they have. When they do, most museums do a terrible job preserving their collections. Even when they have great facilities and materials for preservation, they make it difficult for the public to study the collections with limited days and hours. Users frequently do not care about the collections so the items disappear, and misplaced and suffer careless wear. The archivists cannot watch every user so do not monitor the integrity of the collections when used.

This hobby does require an archive where publications and type cards are deposited. Krause might have a library. It might be open to the public. It is in the middle of nowhere.

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Posted By: Marc S.

located in Philadelphia/Lower Merion County.

Would you be surprised if I told you that the collection, which is estimated to be worth between $15 and $25 billion, has never performed a complete inventory of their "goods".

They know what they have on display (they're not allowed to move or change the display, as per will stipulations) - but they have a TON of neat **** in his former home, in other holdings, etc. - and they began an inventory about 10 years ago - and are still calling in experts from various fields to assess valuations on many items that have never really been inventoried. CRAZY, crazy stuff.