The first article on card collecting?

[tim_uk]

You may have to forgive my British ways, as I lapse into the hobby of card collecting, rather than baseball card collecting. But I hope you'll bear with me...

As a keen student of the history of card collecting, it amazes me that there is virtually nothing published before 1930 on the card collecting hobby. We know cards were published from the 1880s, yet for about 30 years, nothing seems to have been published about collecting these cards. I can't believe this is true!

With your help, we'll see if this really is the case or whether, between us, we'll be able to unearth some gems from yesteryear!

George Vrechek published a great article entitled 'The First Article on Baseball Cards?' in which he covers an article from May 1929, "A New York Childhood, Cigarette Pictures". He ends the article, found here, with:

I enjoyed Arthurs story, his writing and wit. I haven't found any additional information about him but imagine that he would have been a willing contributor to Jefferson Burdick's Card Collectors Bulletin in the 1930s had the two ever contacted each other. Until I can go back any further into the yellowed pages of publications, I declare Arthur Hamilton Folwell's A New York Childhood, Cigarette Pictures of May 1929 to be the first known published article on baseball cards as a hobby.

To up the ante, here's an article on cigarette card collecting from 1926, in which Arthur Budge introduces the hobby of cigarette card collecting, including reference to the 'nearly 30 years' that cards have been collected. The Vanity Fair/Collector's Miscellany website can be found here.

Its a pity that the follow-on article is missing from the site. And the reference to the Charles Matthews collection of over 1,000 sets is something we can come back to in another thread, another time.

But in this thread, the gauntlet is now thrown down: What can you find on card, cigarette card, picture card, trade card, 'stiffener' (as they were once known), baseball card collecting, before 1926?