Posted By:
Hal LewisThe reason that I tend to agree with Jeff is that we still have Post Cards in 2005...
but NOBODY would even DARE consider a 2005 Post Card showing Chipper Jones on the front to be a "real baseball card."
If this Gibson item had been produced in 1881 when there really weren't very many real baseball cards and in the day when Cabinet sized photos were all we had... then I might (might) feel differently.
True, the Negro Leagues never really produced many cards... but the Negro League players had appeared in "real" baseball cards in the 1920's in Cuba and the Dominican.
Thus, it is hard to argue that this baseball team or league could not have made "real" baseball cards for distribution if they had wanted to.
For all we know, these might have been "calling cards" that the photographer made PERSONALLY for Josh Gibson and ONLY for him. This would be supported by the fact that Gibson is the one who signed and sent this Post Card.
We KNOW that Exhibit cards were sold in huge volumes to the public for "collecting" purposes... but we just don't know that about this item.
It might almost be better if the item was not inscribed by Gibson but by some third party ... or if several more of these were known to exist to VERIFY that these were not just PERSONAL "business cards" made for Gibson by the team photographer.