I think his T206 Wagner is ugly. :)

What about 2013 Topps cards? Or the rack packs I bought in 1983? Those weren't distributed in order to promote a different product. Is Keith Olbermann arguing that 1983 Topps cards aren't baseball cards because they weren't produced in order to sell candy/tobacco/bread?

The many discussions we have had about what is and is not a baseball card just show that the question is really not objectively answerable. To me the Brooklyn thing is not a card but if it is to someone else so be it.

There are several characteristics which constitute what we all agree is a baseball card:

1) It's a rectangular piece of cardboard that depicts a baseball player or several players.
2) It's typically distributed to advertise a product, such as tobacco, candy, or gum.
3) It's widely distributed to the greatest number of people possible.
4) If you collect the whole bunch of them you will be able to complete a set.

The Atlantics CdV certainly depicts baseball players, but it contains no advertising, was selectively distributed, and is not part of a set. So it does not have all of the traits we typically associate with a baseball card.

When I first started specializing in 19th century baseball memorabilia in the late 1980's, there wasn't a single collector who called a CdV a baseball card. But that definition has changed over time, and now most collectors consider it to be one.

What do I think was most responsible for that change? The slab. When the TPG started slabbing them, we started calling them baseball cards. It's just part of how the hobby has evolved.

Does it have to be rectangular? What about a series such as Colgans? Are they cards or not?

I think one could reasonably argue that CdVs that contain the studio name on the verso (the overwhelming majority) advertise the studio, in much the same way that, say, a Topps card advertises Topps (and the product it produces -- baseball player images).

In regard to the requirement that the depiction be of a baseball player (or players), I would add the qualification that the depiction be in a baseball context. For example an image of Cap Anson taken on a tennis court in tennis attire and holding a tennis racquet would not qualify to me as a baseball card, no matter how it was distirbuted and no matter what it advertised.

Colgan's Chips are interesting. They are quasi-cards. I would call them discs. In the end it probably doesn't matter. They're close enough.

Yes, a Topps card advertised Topps....but they sold bubble gum. That was their primary business. In later years the gum became less important.

I agree w/Barry in that the term "card" has become much more loosely assigned to things since slabbing. If we're going to call postcards, cabinet cards, discs, stamps, magazine cutouts cards...I would certainly consider a CDV with a studio's advertising...depicting a baseball team or player...a card...as back then...this is all there was?!

Fair, but when bubble gum became ancillary to their primary business --baseball cards, or, better yet, were they to have discontinued the sale of bubble gum, did their player cards cease to be baseball cards?

My point is that I think the advertising requirement is satisfied if the product/service advertised is the commercial taking of photographs by the establishment distributing the "cards".

Yes, the inclusion of the photographer's imprint on a CdV is in fact a form of advertising, and as I said a CdV is loosely akin to a baseball card. It has some but not all of the characteristics. And it's okay to call it a baseball card, even though not every collector agrees it is.

As kids we all would have agreed with the above (people my age, anyway), but I think you're assuming a lot, thinking we all are in agreement now.

For instance, I don't consider postcards to be 'baseball cards'. I also don't consider any mounted photograph to be a baseball card - in my opinion, they are mounted photographs. We even have more specific terms for them, such as 'cabinet photograph', or 'cart-de-visite'. Even if they advertise something;e.g-'Peck & Snyder', I don't consider them to be baseball cards. Perhaps it's the 'distribution' aspect you mention, or that such items aren't generally part of a 'set' (at least, a set of any meaningful size). But to me it doesn't matter - I collect both baseball cards and mounted photographs, and it doesn't matter to me what anyone else calls them.

Scott- I don't expect that everyone will agree with my definition of what constitutes a baseball card. We've had many debates on this topic, with varying opinions. The definition has widened over time for economic reasons too. A baseball card is worth more money than a mounted photograph. That's just a fact.

Okay, I thought you were serious when you stated "we all agree", which sort of surprised me. Although, I do for the most part agree with your list of criteria.

When asked "what is art?" Picasso supposedly replied, "what is not?"

My understanding is that MLB does have a pretty strict definition of what a baseball card is and they are highly protective of their intellectual property with respect to this. If one tries to distribute what they consider a card depicting major leaguers (NL or AL) of any era in major league uniforms without a license they are not happy.

There was an unofficial SABR project to produce colorized cards of early players for distribution to members. Hundreds of different cards were produced (yes - they are a set) and they are amazingly good, glossy and all. In the end (at least so far) they could not be distributed.

Of course we can distribute images of players among the membership in many forms (newsletters, magazines, books, etc.) with no problem. Perhaps, instead of cards, we should try making a set of CDVs.

I agree that the photography studio advertising its own business interests on CDVs or cabinets, is advertising a "product." I also believe that postcards are also selling a product - a postage medium. To me, its more important that the "cards" were made available to the public, and therefore collected. As someone said above, very early (prior to 1886), CDVs and cabinets were all they had. And postcards have been collected for over a century. Plus, both are simply COOL AS HELL!! (Which is why I collect in the first place).

Obviously I don't know all of the law but I would think that any card that doesn't have a trademarked MLB logo, or a team licensed logo, isn't something MLB could do anything about. Isn't that the way some unlicensed sets are produced today? I would tell them to stick it where they sun don't shine if they harassed me about cards without their logo.....

One essential part of a baseball card is that it is a trading card and was designed to be collected as collectibles by people in the general public. Thus, a studio photograph made for one team member or a family photo for the family is not a trading card.

Most CDVs were not trading cards. Though some were.

Some might reasonably argue that some postcards were designed to be, or assumed would be, collected as they have collectible images on them-- baseball stars, movie stars, etc. I'm sure there were people in the general public who collected postcards back them.

I don't like to get caught up in all of the semantics of what determines what is and isn't a card?! A disc...is not a card...a stamp...is not a card...but...a CDV...whether it was made for the team/team members...and has a studio name attached...in my opinion...is a card. Remember guys...this is from a time period before there were any baseball "cards"...there was no definition! For whatever worth a "definition" really is anyway?!

It's true that a lot of the labels and definitions we use today are things we made up and used retroactively. And rose is still a rose as Romeo said to Richard III.

Having said that, I firmly don't believe any CDV with a baseball player on it counts as a baseball card. Just remember that baseball card is short for baseball trading card. It doesn't mean anything that is a physical card with a baseball graphic on it. Nor is any physical card a trading card.

But many 1800s CDVs of Queen Victoria, Abe Lincoln and such were sold to the general public as as collectibles-- and if someone wants to call those trading cards, I'd probably go along with that.

With many early sport and non-sport items, there are things you just don't know-- such as why and for whom it was made. Was a particular CDV of Robert E. Lee by a famous studio made for his personal use or intended to be sold/distributed to the general public? Sometimes you simply don't know.

My definition is a little less restrictive than Barry's. I think a baseball card is a piece of paper/cardboard portraying a baseball image, that was not part of a publication, that could be acquired by the general public. The caveat of not being part of a publication was meant to exclude baseball pictures in a newspaper or magazine from this definition. This would allow for CdVs (I think these were also sold by the photographer in the case of famous teams), exhibits, cabinets, postcards, trade cards, etc. My and Corey's requirement about a baseball image raises an interesting question about the grand match tickets coming up in REA, since the image there is of Harry Wright, or Harry and Sam Wright together, as a cricket player.

When you get to early baseball cards, there's a lot of gray area, unanswerable questions, philosophy and personal sentiment. It's baseball card theory.

Many early CDVs of famous people were indeed marketed and sold to the public by the photographer, and famous people often handed out CDVs of themselves to general public fans. I've seen photographer advertising and order letters between famous people and studios that document this. Charles Dickens, as one example, ordered CDVs that he would send to fans who wrote to him. Those CDVs were definitely intended to be collected or otherwise kept as souvenirs or mementos. It also says you could own a Dickens CDV that was owned by Dickens.

Jay- I agree regarding the Grand Match Harry Wright. Since it is part of a set of cricket players, you need go no further. That eliminates it from being a baseball card. It may be the first trading card ever issued, and it may be the first cricket card ever issued. Those are both likely. But it is not a baseball card.

But I bet it is about to be called one.:)

You just hit the nail on the head - these were 'before' baseball cards as we know them. I'm not going to Olberman you, but I don't think there should be an assumption that before there were modern 'baseball cards, that there had to be something else that we will now call 'baseball cards'. Just as, before baseball was created, we wouldn't be calling other games 'baseball', simply because there wasn't yet a game 'baseball' to affix that label to.

But, as you say, it's all semantics. Barry stated that if something gets to be called a 'baseball card', that it will be worth more. If that's true, I guess I would prefer that you all think that all of my mounted baseball-related photos are baseball cards, even if I don't think so. But I don't really believe that if Olberman declared certain cdv's to no longer be baseball cards, and his word was acknowledged by all of us as an utterance from the true authoritative voice of our hobby king, that the value of such cards would go down.

As long as SGC is willing to put these items in slabs, they will maintain their value. The slab gives them their credibility and additional value - if you don't believe me, look at the prices of baseball-related cdv's prior to SGC's first encapsulation of such items, and their values immediately after. It was a pretty phenomenal increase.

So, if a player ordered a bunch of photographs from George Burke, and mailed those out when requested from fans, they would be ... baseball cards? The only difference from the item you describe is the thickness of the paper. And a photograph is often thicker than a baseball card;e.g-Type 1 coupons are thinner than the postcard-stock photos that Burke produced for players in the '30s and '40s. Not all were postcard stock, but that was an option (I have some).

I'm just messing with you - for the most part I'm in agreement with Barry's list, but then again, I don't own any expensive baseball cdv's or postcards, so I have no financial incentive to define those as baseball cards.

Card, as in the physical item itself, is defined differently by different people. Some people don't call something a baseball card simply because they don't think the fits the physical definition of a card. Sweet Caporal pins fit all the rules for being a baseball card except for one small detail-- it's a pin not a card.

For the benefit of those who don't know photography or French, the word carte in carte de visite (aka CDV) literally translates to card. And that's the original 1800s term, not a modern retroactive concoction.

And to reiterate what I said in an earlier post, card and trading card are not one and the same. A trading card has to be a card, but being a physical card does not in and of itself make something a trading card. And baseball card is short for baseball trading card.

Then there is Rucker's 1988 book, "Baseball Cartes - The First baseball Cards."

Lionel Hutz: "This is the most blatant case of false advertising since my suit against the movie The Neverending Story."

Perhaps we should consult King Azaz's cabinet.

What only complicates things even further is back then they referred to Oscar Wilde as a card.

That's not quite accurate, Barry, at least w/r/t CDVs' availability and value as a commercial product. Some photographers made and sold CDVs of famous people to the general public as collectibles. They definitely had commercial value. Charles Deforest Fredricks had a studio and gallery in NYC from which he retailed his line of famous people CDVs called "Specialite". They were available to the general public as a commercial product. Here is an example:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...enan%20CDV.jpg

Thanks Adam. Some were, of course, such as the Cincinnati Red Stockings with the ad for Chadwick's Game of Baseball. Many weren't however. I don't believe the Atlantics would have been available publicly.

Barry, I'm not understanding how you are coming up with that assumption. There was only one produced (as far as we can tell, and as evidenced by the fact that it's a photo affixed to a recycled mount), so there's no proof whatsoever as to what it's intended use actually was - it could have been exactly the same as the Cincinnati Red Stockings cdv, something to be handed out by players to family members, or any of the other possibilities that I listed earlier in this thread.

My definition excludes pins and bottle caps but somehow still misses the 3-D plastic baseball cards, which should be included. Maybe an ammendment is necessary.

Scott- assuming I understand your question, because most of the Cincinnati Red Stocking cards that have survived contain various product advertising, such as the Peck and Snyder Sportings Goods store, or for Henry Chadwick's book The Game of Baseball, of course those were distributed to as large an audience as possible. When you have a product to sell, you want to get the word out to the public. In the case of the Atlantics CdV, because there is no product advertising, coupled with the fact that only a single one has survived (save the Library of Congress example), that suggests that a limited supply of them were available. Do we know for a fact the general public couldn't buy one of them? No. Is it reasonable to think they weren't able to? That's my opinion.

We don't know enough about how CdV's were distributed and circulated. Most were not available to the public. Some were.

Barry - Thanks, I completely agree with you.

Also, since the Brooklyn cdv has now been sold, I think it's okay for us to be very honest about our opinions - not just regarding it's 'baseball-cardness'. I'll revive the original thread and piss off half the board by giving mine. :)