Who Was America's First Card Collector?

Who Was America’s First Baseball Card Collector?

Next year we will celebrate our 35th year as a dedicated collector of rare baseball memorabilia and rare high grade baseball cards.

Over the course of the past 10,000 days we have talked with thousands of dealers and collectors, accumulated the largest collection of baseball card magazines and newsletters in the world, and tracked selected auction results from than 600 baseball memorabilia auctions.

While we are proud of our collection, what we have enjoyed most is the opportunity it has presented to study the history of baseball, and the history of the baseball memorabilia business.

It is our hope to complete a fully illustrated memoir about our hobby experiences which will focus on the collectors, early hobby activity which heretofore has not been well documented, and our experiences with infamous dealers and collectors . We will also look closely at the history of 100 organizations whose memorabilia and baseball card production shaped the hobby between 1900 and the present day.

In our view no topic will be as interesting than to dig back through our correspondence, and conversations and look at the early pioneers as well as to create our own list of The Hobby 200.

It is with this thought in mind that we want to share a brief biography of the person who Irv Lerner, in his legendary book, “Who’s Who in Card Collecting” named as the first great collector. This man was one of the original six members of the Baseball Card Collectors Hall of Fame (1969-70).
His Hobby Hall of Fame entry, in part, reads:

Walter Corson Glenmore, PA (1900-1966)

“Walter Corson was not only one of the first known card collectors, but he also had one of the largest collections including 616 different complete sets, plus 500 0ther complete sets among his 158,000 duplicates. …He wrote numerous articles and worked along side his friends, Charles Bray, Buck Barker and Jed Burdick to develop series check lists.

Walter was also a talented athlete, playing minor league baseball as a first baseman. In fact, in 1925 he led the Arizona State League in batting. He was invited to the Yankees training camp in St. Petersburg, but another young first basemen, Lou Gehrig, had the first base spot secured. After his baseball career ended, he served as a scout with the Cleveland Indians for eight years.

Sadly, in 1958 Colson learned he was suffering from cancer, he decided to run a classified ad in the Card Collectors bulletin which read:
“Due to my recent cancer operation and the uncertainties of life, I am putting my entire collection up for sale.

It was not long, before another legendary collector decided to purchase that collection. That collector was Frank Nagy.

We hope you enjoyed this rare piece of early hobby history. If you have any questions or exceptional items for sale or trade, please contact us at:

Bruce Dorskind
America’s Toughest Want List
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com

[joeadcock]

Thank you for the information.

Frank

[Leon]

We were fortunate enough to have a few dealings with Walt's best friend, Dr.James Lowe (who almost single handedly wrote the book on postcards), from an ebay transaction with his son and board member, Jeff Lowe. I believe Mr.Lowe was with Walt when he passed away and/or also might have performed the memorial service for him. As I recall Mr.Lowe was in the ministry too. (Don't hold my feet to the fire for any of this, this is what I remember him telling me, but it was several years ago). We were able to acquire Mr.Corson's lists of cards and here is a letter he had written to him. This "hoard" was also where the oft shown Jefferson Burdick letter(s) came from. I think all of these guys were the first real card collectors in America, along with Lionel and the other early collectors previously mentioned in another thread.

(shown many times but still apropos and neat)

Leon

Great post


If you can make copies (if they are not too fragile) we would love to see them.

Would be great to have a post on collectors correspondence


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com

[vintagechris]

Great reads guys.

[tbob]

Gilliam Squires had to be one of the first collectors of PCL cards. His stamped Obaks are all over the place from 1909-11.

[tedzan]

Former Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell collected most of his enormous (1000+) T-cards as a teenager during 1909-1911.
This collection is fully documented where it is on display at the University of Georgia (Athens, GA).

Russell's set is one of the very few in the BB card hobby that can boast having the 2 most scarcest 20th Century BB cards.
The T206 Doyle error and the Red Ty Cobb with the Ty Cobb back. His T206 set consists of 500+ cards and his T210 set is
near complete.

Can we say that Richard Russell is the "first documented Card Collector" ?

Or, perhaps Connie Mack, who collected American Caramel cards in 1908-1912 ? ?


TED Z

[Leon]

Originally Posted by tbob

Gilliam Squires had to be one of the first collectors of PCL cards. His stamped Obaks are all over the place from 1909-11.

Don't forget that guy named "Alfred" that has his name on so many of our PCL cards. That guy really got around.

[Matt]

America's first card collector was probably a kid back in the 1880s whose identity has been lost to time.

[GoldenAge50s]

Originally Posted by Matt

America's first card collector was probably a kid back in the 1880s whose identity has been lost to time.

You're right Matt---a few SOMEBODYS from the 1880's had to be collectors for all those OJ's to have survived!

[tedzan]

I will offer evidence of an early collector from the 1880's that is identified on my Goodwin Champions album.






Also, I once acquired an original complete set of the 1888 Goodwin Champions (N162), where all 50 cards
had the following stamped on the backs of these cards with purple ink.........

E.S. Richardson
Danvers, Mass.

So, there you go, now we can account for two 1880's collectors.

TED Z

[rhettyeakley]

Who Was America’s First Baseball Card Collector?

This kid...


And I bet these kids also dabbled in the pictures of ballplayers (when not looking for N85's)...

[vrechek]

I'm writing an SCD article on the Card Collectors Hall of Fame as described in Who's Who in Card Collecting 1970 by Irv Lerner, Bob Jaspersen, and Richard Reuss.
I have photos of Burdick, Barker, Bray and Carter, but no photos of John D. Wagner, EC Wharton-Tigar, Walt Corson, Edward (Robert) Payne, or Preston Orem. Does anyone out there have a .jpg of any of the missing 5 which I can borrow for the story?
George Vrechek

[oldjudge]

I think Bruce is talking about the first person who amassed a major collection, not the first person to collect cards. Obviously, as soon as cards came into existence collectors came into existence. My guess is that the first major card collector, even of U.S. cards, was not American. In the U.K., card collecting developed as a hobby way before it did here.

[wonkaticket]

Jay agree the folks overseas were into Cartophily well before us that's why there are so many overseas issues such as Leibig and others that go way back even as far as 1872 and were not just limited to tobacco and candy...as trade inserts.

Cheers,

John

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Ted- I have never heard the Connie Mack collecting story could you elaborate!

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by vrechek

I have photos of Burdick, Barker, Bray and Carter, but no photos of John D. Wagner, EC Wharton-Tigar, Walt Corson, Edward (Robert) Payne, or Preston Orem. Does anyone out there have a .jpg of any of the missing 5 which I can borrow for the story?
George Vrechek

No image, but I do remember an early SCD price book (3rd volume?) in the early 80's that had a photo of an elderly John D. Wagner that was included in a short article of him reminiscing on his collecting, and how he bought a suit once mainly because of the large grouping of tobacco baseball cards that was offered as a bonus.

Brian

[tedzan]

Connie Mack and Daniel LaFean (founder of the American Caramel Company, Phila., PA)) were very close friends at the start of the 20th Century.
It is reported that Connie Mack encouraged LaFean to include BB cards with his candy products....circa 1908.

One of the Biographical books on Connie Mack tells how Mack was excited when the NADJA (E104) BB cards were issued late in 1910 depicting 17
of his A's players and him (titled "World's Champions" ). Mack acquired them and was giving them out to his players and his friends.

11 years ago, I had an interesting conversation with Connie Mack's Grandson, Florida Senator Connie Mack III. In the course of our conversation,
Connie briefly talked about his Grandfather's card collecting interests .






That is Connie Mack III 's signature on my A's Golden Jubilee program.


TED Z

[Bicem]

Originally Posted by Matt

America's first card collector was probably a kid back in the 1880s whose identity has been lost to time.

Steve Murray.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Bicem

Steve Murray.

Nice.....

[brianp-beme]

I found that article on John D. Wagner. It is actually in the Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide by Beckett and Eckes, volume 4 from 1982. Over the years I have tossed a few guidebooks after they had become less than useful, but always hung onto this one because of the articles in contained, and the full color pages of cards displayed like the 19th century collection of Lew Lipset and E's, T's and R cards with their designations listed beneath. It was my first introduction to a lot of the different sets.

The story on the John D. Wagner purchasing the suit for the cards is slightly different than what I mentioned earlier...man, it has been a couple of decades since I last read it. In 1919 he visited the Globe Clothing Store in Harrisburg, PA, and considered buying a $16.00 suit because of the promotion that included a complete set of cards (I assume this would be the Globe Clothing issue, which have the same front designs as the M101-4 issue), but instead decided on purchasing a $14.00 suit instead. He eventually ended up buying the complete set from another suit buyer who didn't care about the cards.

Also in the article is a little story of how in 1909 he and two other kids spotted a 4-5" high rubber banded stack of tobacco cards in an alleyway (I am pretty sure I and many fellow collectors have had a similiar dream). After a mad scramble the biggest kid of the group ended up with them, and that they got tossed in a wood burning stove by that kid's folks shortly after, leaving John to always wonder what was in that stack.

He also mentions that he had two T206 Wagners, and that he mailed one 4-5times to fellow collectors who requested to see it, and that he sent his extra one to Jeff Burdick for free, but that Burdick eventually paid him $25.00 dollars for it.

The book also has a great article by Lew Lipset on the 1933 Goudey set, and includes b/w photos of the fronts of all the uncut sheets issued with a numbering schematic beneath, which is a great visual aid in understanding the whole red panel/no panel issue. Also the article indicates when each series was issued.

Sorry, currently a man of no scans...the picture of John D. Wagner is on page 418.

Brian

[brianp-beme]

And just so this thread gets more activity, I will now throw in some T206 talk and a little controversy. In that same article John D. Wagner mentions that he met Honus Wagner in 1942 or 1943, and in regards to the T206 of him Honus told John D. that he was very opposed to smoking and that he didn't want to influence kids in that direction, so he had them stop printing the card. Mr. J. Wagner also remembered that Eddie Plank was also against smoking, and thought that perhaps these two cards were never issued to the public, citing that the Plank card in particular was quite often found with uneven margins, as if cut from the sheet by hand.

So at least later in life Honus claimed to have the printing stopped. Of course maybe that was wishful reminiscing on his part.

Brian

[FrankWakefield]

Knew I had one of his old cards, somewhere...

[Wite3]

America's First Card Collector:
ARCHIVE!!!

[vrechek]

Thanks a million, Brian, for your great memory. Fortunately Price Guide #4 was right on my shelf about 10 feet away. I found Wagner's picture. I would attach it but haven't figured out how to do that yet. Like any wantlist, now I'm down to just looking for Wharton-Tigar, Corson, Orem, and Payne. I also have some stories I've picked up on Wagner. He was well-liked and one of the earliest baseball card collectors. Lionel Carter thought highly of him.
George Vrechek