Burdick at the Met

[bigfanNY]

I know there have been previous threads about this wonderful collection. But they have been making progress cataloging and photographing the collection and making the images available on their web site.
When you bring up the collection the fist item pictured is T206 Wagner. But if you resort the collection from oldest to newest it brings up a number of albums pages that were assembled by Mr Burdick. They represent a national treasure trove of baseball card knowledge. But you can see that a good portion of the collection appears to be stored as Burdick left it. Which makes displaying large portions of the collection almost impossible. Where possible Burdick shared variations of different backs, more with T207's than T206's but still eye candy Willie Wonka style...
I spent a fw hours of my quarantine time enjoying the collection here are a few examples.

[ALBB]

What was that story..at one time you were allowed to request to look at the album...and they would simply hand it to you.......

then the story goes, later on someone else was looking at the album..and lo and behold..missing cards in the spots of Cobb, Plank, etc...

I might have the card owners name wrong/ or the Library...but I recall it happened ..many years ago ???

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

I know when I viewed it as a 17 year old 30 years ago everything except the Wagner was mounted in albums and a guard stayed with me the entire time I was viewing. They would only let me have one book at a time, and I guess it would've been possible to remove a card and not get caught, but man you would've had to have some big balls to try it.

[ullmandds]

That's great! I've been there numerous times to check out the offerings...but have never made an appt.

These are the cards...along with other older famous collections in museums... that should be used to set parameters for a digitized grading model...as they are most likely unaltered.

[MatthewN]

I was in NYC on business in early March. Here's some of what was on display as of 3/6. Front desk was helpful in pointing me in the right direction!

[bigfanNY]

When I visted in 1975 they asked if we wanted a guide we said yes (I still have it looks like a condensed American card catalog). It was very helpful identifying which albums and books to ask to see.
The Wagner was in the album with a stamp hinge. I noticed that the Wagner has evidence on the lower edge where folks lifted it to see the back.
A Docent helped us and although not with us every minute he did look at albums when we were finished.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by bigfanNY

When I visted in 1975 they asked if we wanted a guide we said yes (I still have it looks like a condensed American card catalog). It was very helpful identifying which albums and books to ask to see.
The Wagner was in the album with a stamp hinge. I noticed that the Wagner has evidence on the lower edge where folks lifted it to see the back.
A Docent helped us and although not with us every minute he did look at albums when we were finished.

This?

[ALBB]

Yea, that sounds like how they operated back then, but just seem to recall reading something about some key cards " gone missing " ..blank spots in album,....

[T206Collector]

Link to the album pages:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collec...earchField=All

[bigfanNY]

YES that is guide to collection. This is interior where we marked which items we wished to see. As I recall he would bring 2 cartloads and when we finished one he would reshelf the items and bring us next cart.

[bigfanNY]

YES that is guide to collection. This is interior where we marked which items we wished to see. As I recall he would bring 2 cartloads and when we finished one he would reshelf the items and bring us next cart.
A very different experiance than what is offered now.
And yes I had heard that a number of cards were stolen from the collection which led to increased security and eventually to extremely limited access to the collection. Which is a shame because clearly Mr. Burdick wanted to share his collection with those who most appreciated it.