[benjulmag]

My view on this question has evolved over time. I now regard the Jordan & Co. CdV of Harry Wright as the first baseball card. My reasoning is as follows.

The 1863 match featured 2 cricket games and 1 baseball game (between the NY Knickerbockers and the Brooklyn Excelsiors). Except for Harry Wright, every other player has only one known solo image. Harry Wright, in contrast, has two. In one of them he is shown holding a cricket bat with a ball on the floor. In the other, he is holding the ball and there is no bat, and he is also wearing a cap. This suggests to me that the purpose for the two images was to promote the two separate aspects of the Grand Match, cricket and baseball, with the ball-only image representing baseball.

As to the question why this should be regarded as a baseball card more than a ticket, the reason is that patrons could purchase entrance via a non-photographic ticket for half price (25 cents, versus 50 cents for the photographic pass). The fact someone was willing to pay twice the price to purchase the photographic ticket means that what the person was paying extra for was the baseball image, and it is for THAT reason that I regard it as a baseball card, which I define to be a "card-sized" baseball image available to the general public issued for commercial purposes.

In regard to the argument that because the Jordan & Co. CdV also serves a ticketing purpose, it should be regarded as "less" of a card than N167s, which does not have a dual purpose, I point out the following. The primary purpose of N167s was to sell cigarettes. When someone purchased a N167, that person's focus was more likely the cigarettes, the baseball card being the ancillary item to the tobacco product. In contrast, because admittance to the Grand Match games could be obtained more cheaply by purchasing a non-photographic ticket, in that instance the person was buying the baseball image. Accordingly, by that line of reasoning, one could reasonably regard it as more of baseball card than a N167.