[barrysloate]

Keith's article focused on one aspect of what constitutes a baseball card, and that is how the were distributed. Typically baseball cards are readily available to the public, whether found in a box of cigarettes, a wax pack with bubble gum, a penny exhibit machine, or through some type of promotion. Even Peck & Snyders would fit into that category as anyone could walk into their store and purchase one of their photographic trade cards.

But I do not believe the general public had access to a standard CdV. That Brooklyn Atlantics was likely made for the members of the team to give out to their friends and family. The average fan of the team probably didn't even know they existed. And add to it that they had no advertising, they had no commercial value whatsoever.

So while there are various characteristics of a baseball card, and a CdV fits most of them, they were privately distributed and therefore different from traditional cards as we know them.