[drcy]

Peck & Snyder team CDVs were also available via mail order I believe through their catalog.

There are always unanswered questions and debatable details, but I'd pick the Peck & Snyders. There are earlier cards, but there are questions about them, whether game passes count or whether it's a cricket or baseball image. Some people say trade cards don't count as baseball cards-- however, kids collected trade cards back then. Kid's scrapbooks are filled with trade cards, along with scraps, die cuts and trading cards.

No can know for sure and people have different definitions, but Peck & Snyders are a good pick.

I don't think national distribution is a definer. Regional baseball cards are still baseball cards. Though Old Judges were clearly distributed to the general public + have product advertising on them.

It's notable that commercially sold and collected CDVs of celebrities (politicians, generals, actors, writers, inventors) were made during the Civil War. Someday a baseball version may be discovered. There is a civil war era Mathew Brady CDV of Sam ad Harry Wright, but it's debated if it counts as a baseball or cricket image. Sam was a cricketer and his son Harry played both.

There are early baseball CDVs, but we don't know how they were distributed. They could have been sold to the general public, but we don't know. I'm not one for taking leaps of faith.

Lastly, there are Civil War and earlier stereoview cards showing baseball games and they were commercially sold to the public. Though some won't consider these baseball cards. Even I would consider them something else.

Early baseball cards can be called baseball card theory.

Also realize that terms like baseball card, rookie card and pre-rookie card are later coined and defined terms that we apply retroactively. There's nothing organic and eternal about the term rookie card. The hobby made it up in modern times then applied it backwards.