Several questions about 19th century baseball cards & collectibles

[mouschi]

EXCELLENT information, thank you, David! In my head, I'm trying to figure out what was attainable by the average baseball fan. I see some pics/cdvs of teams that include King Kelly, Cap Anson, etc. or even the Creighton single CDV and just don't see all that many kids back then having them. It seems to me as though the closest thing to a collectible as a baseball card for them would be the woodcuts (pre old judge, allen & ginter, that is) - at least from the perspective of things that were fairly readily available like cards are today. If cards weren't available when I was a kid, I'm sure I'd flock to newspapers/magazines myself with a pair of scissors in hand!

Originally Posted by drcy

Some CDVs and cabinet cards were sold commercially, but most were just normal photos. The ones that were most likely sold commercially will be of famous subjects and well known commercial galleries such as Sarony, Mathew Brady, Carl Horner, J.Wood and others.

Most non-commercial CDVs and cabinet cards are unique or close to. Most other cabinet cards and CDVs are rare, perhaps a handful at most at most. Some CDVs of obviously commercial subjects such as Abe Lincoln and Queen Victoria are fairly plentiful.

Offhand, I can't think of a non-baseball card CDV or cabinet card that has more than a few tens in existence.

Harper's and Leslie's woodcuts were very much collected-- that was almost the point of the magazines--, but are pretty plentiful.

Most well known lithograph trade cards are as plentiful as normal baseball cards, but there are rare ones.

A post I wrote for SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee a year or two back: Are CDVs and Cabinet Cards Baseball Cards? Yes, No and Maybe