Is 1900 considered ( 19th or 20th Century)?
 

If any cards were issued in 1900 would they be a 19th or 20th Century card ?

Technically the 20th century began on January 1st, 1901, since there was no year 0 in our calendar (1 BC was followed by 1 AD). But that being said, I'd assume most people in their own minds round down to the zero. If I owned an item from the year 1900, I'd personally think of it as a 20th century piece.

Anthony's right. Ask yourself, did you celebrate the new millenium on New Year's Day 2000 or 2001.

The technically precise answer and the commonly accepted answer are different.

What Anthony and Jim said. It would be 19th century, and few people would realize that.

A way to think of this is that the start of the AL as a major league in 1901 marks the first year of the 20th C.

And civilization as we know it....

Thats too technical.
And too much of an ongoing issue.

I suggest we move the BC years back one year - so that society never has to worry about this again.

As others have said, the year 1900 was the final year (completion) of the 19th Century.

In fact, that's exactly why it's the 19th Century, because it ended in 1900. 2000 was the final year of the 20th Century, 1800 was the final year of the 18th Century.....

We are currently in the 21st Century, which will be completed in the year 2100.


Steve

See: Seinfeld episode No. 154, The Millennium

"Thus, quite lame."

The corollary to all of this is what year is it now?? Not two thousand nine, but rather twenty oh nine.

I was born in nineteen fifty-four. Most all of us were born in nineteen something.

When T206s come out in 1909, I doubt they said it was one thousand nine hundred nine, nor nineteen hundred nine. I think they said nineteen oh nine.

Independence, seventeen seventy-six. Civil war, eighteen sixty-one. Pearl Harbor nineteen forty-one. And this year that we're in now, twenty oh nine. Next year is twenty ten. Then twenty eleven. Eventually we'll let go of our two thousand hangup and get it right.

1/1/1901 was considered the big date a century ago
 

The New York Times, for example, didn't do a special story on January 1, 1900, whereas on January 1, 1901, it ran a front-page one with the following headline:

TWENTIETH CENTURY'S TRIUMPHANT ENTRY; Welcomed by New York with Tumultuous Rejoicing.

And a first paragraph that began:

"The Century is dead; long live the Century! Yesterday was the Nineteenth, today the Twentieth. Some time last night the one died and the other was born. Here in New York the event took place at midnight."

By the way, today's Times has an article about 1890s men's fashion coming back in style; the link may work only if you've previously been able to access Times articles on your computer:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/fashion/12CODES.html