When is a Card Not a Card?

[robw1959]

Let me begin with a disclaimer: I only collect vintage baseball cards. Well, I do have a couple of vintage football card sets, but you get the picture . . . no autographs, no memorabilia - just cards for me.

Having grown up during the '60s and '70s, pretty much all I knew about were the Topps issues. So to me, a baseball was made of card stock thick enough to be stacked together with others and small enough for several to be held together in one hand. During my teen years I expanded my horizons by bidding on truly vintage cards through Frank Nagy's mail auctions. Those were great! But I recall being disappointed one time when I won an Old Butterfinger poster (around 6"X8") that was too large and an original Cracker Jack card that looked very cool, but was way too thin. I had a hard time storing those along with the regular vintage cards in my collection like the older Topps, Bowman, and T206 issues, and never really considered them to be "true" baseball cards.

I realize I'm probably in the fringe minority about these arbitrary standards, but I'm just wondering what others may think about what actually constitutes a baseball card. Your thoughts?