Negro League cards never produced or didn't survive

[novakjr]

I think one thing to consider is the time period of the 40's, that you mentioned, is the effect that ww2 had on baseball and the economy in general(especially in regards to paper). Which is one of the reasons that we don't even see a whole lot of Major League issues during that time period. You'd also have to figure that by the time cards started to be produced in larger quantities again, that integration had already begun..

So realistically, I'd think that the cost of producing cards during this time period would've been too much for the negro league teams to take on, and then by the time costs started to come back down, the negro leagues were already in a downfall due to losing many of it's best players to the major leagues..

Just a coupla thoughts..

[cardaholic]

I would not be surprised if some paper advertising had been created using the pictures of Negro League stars for businesses that served black customers, and I would expect this to be most likely in the formally segregated South (I'm guessing restaurants as the most probable advertisers). These might well have been limited to ephemera that most of us would not now consider as cards - newspaper ads, etc. Stand-alone advertising flyers would have been reasonable, and those of us with broader definitions of cards might deem those to be cards.
It certainly would seem worthwhile to investigate - Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, and Chattanooga black newspapers would be the most logical starting point. New York black newspapers would be sensible too. Of course, if you were to find in a library archive an ad featuring a Negro League star as a pitchman for some local restaurant, then you'd have to try to find some other copy you could purchase (unless you're Barry Halper, in which case you'd pay someone to steal it). [Granted, you could find a nice niche market in reprints of a newspaper ad if you think you can do it without fear of a copyright lawsuit.]

[bcbgcbrcb]

Any other thoughts? There were some interesting theories here until the thread got sidetracked.

[Hankphenom]

Sorry, Phil, I couldn't resist. The answer seems simple enough, though, with a much smaller (5-10%) population base with much less disposable income not creating enough of a market to make it worthwhile to produce anything to sell. As for team or stadium issues, they played far fewer games at their home ballparks than their white counterparts, again making for a much smaller potential market.

[jerseygary]

I've collected Negro Leagues memorabilia for over 25 years now and haven't come across any cards except the earlier mentioned Cuban and Puerto Rican issues. I've spent many hours talking to the old players from the 30's and 40's, the heyday of blackball, and not one of those guys said anything about cards, I made a point of asking.

In my opinion, the one team that was prime for some kind of card issue in was the 1932-36 Pittsburgh Crawfords. Gus Greenlee the owner was a good marketer and would have been the first to issue something like that if the money was there. He had a much bigger pool of cash than the other teams and knew how to spend it. The other teams, including the KC Monarchs and Homestead Grays didn't have that kind of capital to put into a promo card set. Most of the time advertising, including broadsides and scorecards, were handled by the promoter, such as Nat Strong, or if they played in a MLB or minor league stadium by the white team's marketing department through a prearranged set price.

Even the Indianapolis Clowns who lasted into the 60's, didn't have anything like a card set, outside of a specially printed program they sold at games. On the memorabilia side of Net 54 there was a topic about the Negro League pennants you see every so often. There was supposedly a large find of unused ones many years ago so that kind of speaks to how well souviner items sold at games. The fans just didn't have the spare cash.

You would think that there would be many player endorsements in the black newspaper ads of the period, but those too are lacking. Many ads in black papers are just the same white ones you'd see elsewhere. There wasn't the kind of race target marketing that became normal in the late 60's and 70's.

I remember that Bill Wright "card" that Kenny Cole posted when it was on ebay years ago. I think I even bid on it. It's very intriguing and is most likely, as most people have said, cut from a broadside. The picture is from a series of promo shots taken by the team in 1941 and reproduced many times in the black papers of the time. I've never seen that on a broadside but even so I would bet that's where it is from. It's a great find!

[bcbgcbrcb]

Gary:

Lots of useful insight, your feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Hankphenom]

Pennants, pins, scorecards, etc., but nothing of the players. You'd think Paige would have sold and signed cards of himself on his barnstorming tours.