Earliest Baseball Postcard
 

Postcard Experts etc . : What is the earliest Baseball Postcard ? Any from the 19th Century ? Also earliest Postmark on a baseball postcard ?

Are you including all one-off RPPC's or just postcards from known sets?

Fun question. First thought is that the earliest possible would be 1898, the birth of the "private mailing card," the precursor to postcards.

But here's a 2013 net54 thread about an 1888 "postal card." It'll be hard to beat 1888 but maybe not impossible.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=171578

What are the Peck and Snyder team cards from 1869? Those aren't considered post cards? I remember seeing them described as "trade cards."

CDV or trade card but definitely not postcards. I was thinking mid 1890s for the first postcards and I don't know about the first baseball set of postcards. The one shown in the link above, from a deceased member, is the oldest I think I have seen.

I have photocopies of three postally used postcards, issued by the Troy B.B. Association, inviting stockholders to a meeting of the club, and sent by the secretary of the Troy BBC.
One is dated Oct 8, 1878; one Dec 9, 1878, and the third looks to be Mar 30, 1878 but the ink is a bit smudged. These were all pre-printed with blank lines to fill in pertinent information in ink. I can scan these later if anyone is interested in seeing them.

I’d be more interested in the first baseball postcard that features a player or team photo. Has anyone seen any predating the 1904 Astoria Giants card?

I would love to seen them, Barry. If you need help posing the pics just let me know. I have mostly mastered it after 25000+ posts.

likely key word
 

"mostly"..... Nothing like two aging hobby stalwarts helping each other for the good of the community.
I have somewhere in my archive a few RPPC's - nothing approaching such early dates. I'd enjoy seeing them as well.

Thanks, but Judy knows how to do it, and will be back shortly. If I tried I would start a fire.

Here are the three postcards. They went through the mail and all are postmarked. Although not visual, these are extremely early baseball postcards. And I have no idea where they are right now, all I have are these photocopies.

whoa! Those are awesome Barry!

Wow!

I found this item in the book: Tuff Stuff's Baseball Postcard Collection by Ron Menchine ( 1999), it states "This extremely rare item is the earliest known postcard to feature major league baseball players." Year 1900

That is a great postcard.