[Archive]

Posted By: David

For the gray areas, where there are many, it is up to how the items were distrubuted. In my opinion, a schedule card can (didn't say always will) be a trading card. Several common 1880s comic trade cards have both the typical advertising on front and league schedules on the back. As these were mass marketed to the general public and were intended to be put in scrapbooks or otherwise collected, they are definitely (in my opinion) trading cards. In fact schedules can be considered a type of advertising ... I don't kmow how the 1886 Red Stocks were distributed-- whether they were distributed to the general public or were meant to be given only to big whigs. As they have tobacco advertising on them, I would lean towards calling them cards .... With the 1863 'Match at Hoboken' pass, it is debatable whether or not it is a card. If only one was made and was given to a VIP, I don't think it qualifies as a trading card.

Other debatable areas are Playing Cards and anything that was a Proof or Pre-Production card.

In many areas, it's impossible to determine whether or not an item is a trading card, as it's impossible to tell how it was distributed. For example, a CDV of a famous team may have been sold to public through stores (many CDVs of popular folks like Abe Lincoln were sold commercially to the public), or may have been only made for members of the team-- and no one will ever know. Naturally, this will bug the heck out of type collectors, rookie card collectors and PSA registry folks.