Posted By:
Jay MillerI haven't responded to this question so far, not because there was some undiscovered valuable information inherent in the answer, but because the concensus seemed to be heading to the correct answer and I wasn't going to add very much. My experience is that 1888 cards are somewhat more difficult to find than 1887 and 1889 cards. However, that in itself is not a very valuable piece of information. There are some very rare 1889 cards and some fairly common 1888 cards. Joe made the excellent point that using the term 1887 cards is somewhat of a misnomer because actually there were several different "1887" issues. Even more interesting to me, I believe the first N172s were actually produced in late 1886, not 1887. My reasoning--all Mets showed up as spotted ties in the "1887" script series. Dude Esterbrook was traded from the Giants to the Mets in the fall of 1886 yet he has no spotted tie. There are several other examples which can also be offered. Maybe this is a future article for Old Cardboard.
As to Hal's HOF question, here is a list of Old Judge HOFers with their earliest major league card:
Anson-1888
Beckley-1888
Brouthers-1887
Clarkson-1887
Comiskey-1887
Connor-1887
Delahanty-1889
Duffy-1888
Ewing-1887-as Gypsy Queen, 1888-N172(interesting!)
Galvin-1887
Griffith-Minor League
Hamilton-1889
Hanlon-1887
Keefe-1887
Kelly-1887 (Chicago script series is rookie)
Mack-1887
McCarthy-1887
McPhee-1888
Nichols-Minor League
O'Rourke-1887
Radbourn-1887
Robinson-1888
Thompson-1887
Ward-1887
Welch-1887
Wright-1887
BTW Hal, I have a really nice 1887 Galvin available.