Question for my fellow collectors..

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Posted By: rp60

I was wondering just how important is it to you, as a collector, to know of the era in which these men played? The important names/teams/games, even the rules..Personally I cant imagine anyone NOT being interested in such things.
But maybe thats just me??

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Posted By: Joann

I think they go hand in hand. Vintage cards can be examined for clues about the times and the game, and vice versa. t202 Crawford About to Smash One is perfect view of where the catcher used to stand. The ball had to be generally pitched higher for him to get it in that position, right? N28 Keefe is a breathtaking reflection of the inconsistent use of gloves at that time. How did he hide his grip? Or did he only have one grip?

Even this card - I like it because of the nasty looking stadium structure behind him. And that you can see the bullpen pitchers (?) in front of the cheesy lattice in the back ground. Some people might think - ah, the glory days of baseball. I look at it and go heck no - that's gotta be filled with hornets nests!

So nope - lolol - not just you. Era is gas on the fire for vintage collecting, in my book.

Joann

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Posted By: Anson

From one vintage Tigers fan to another, that's a great shot.

I love thinking (and reading) about how players approached the game. There seemed to be a lot more camaraderie amongst the players. I also picture kids ripping open their caramels and grabbing their cards out. You have to figure, most of the excitement from these legends came by word of mouth. I can imagine the stories.

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Posted By: Dave

Joann,

I love your picture. Here it is with the T206 that has the background cleaned up.

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Posted By: cmoking

the T206 card looks more realistic than the picture. he was caught in a wierd moment - he's got some kind of wierd smirk on his face. Looks more like a mannequin than a person.

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Posted By: Joann

Dave - I'm thinking of picking up a low grade Mullin t206 horiz to go with the M101-2. I think they are a cool pairing. I'm not sure but I think I may have seen that pose somewhere else too. Overall I wouldn't mind getting cards with the same pose in different sets - not necessarily the same image exactly, just the same pose. I have an M116 and t206 O'leary portraits - same picture different treatments that's very cool.

J

Oh - I think Mullin's t202 also looks like it has a smirk. Different, but like a smirk nonetheless.

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Posted By: identify7

I believe that Burdick didn't care about any of those things. His objective was to acquire one of each card made, independent of subject.

I can only imagine what that opportunity must have been like. But as pointed out above, by having the viewpoint of the totality of card collecting, enjoyment of many of the details associated with each card are exchanged for the broader based appreciation perspective.

For me, I enjoy the history of baseball. Cards are used to select highlights of this history which I wish to portray. I do the same with non-sports cards relating to US history. And US coins relating to our technological advancements and material values.

Novice historian first, aspiring beginning collector second.

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Posted By: Dave Snyder

I think knowledge of the era you are collecting in is very important. I've always been a baseball historian but when I started collecting T206's - I became so much more interested in everything about the game between 1909-1911. I'm currrently working on a T206 display in my game room and decided that I want to accent it with vintage pieces of baseball memorabilia........so only items from the late 1900's and early 1910's will do. It's difficult but extremely rewarding.

A wintage 1910's Draper & Maynard first basemans mitt was delivered to my house last night and as I took it out of the box and put it on my hand, I immediately went to look throught my T206's and there it was......John McGraw, glove on hip. It's the same freakin' glove. So cool to think that someone was playing baseball with this mitt 100 years ago.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

The history of certain periods of the game has more or less turned me off of collecting cards from certain eras. I realize that there are a lot of "base ball" buffs here, but I am not enamored of the really old time game. I have a smattering of old-time cards but I generally prefer post-1903 baseball and baseball cards. My favorite era of the game from an historical standpoint is probably the twenty or so years after integration because the opening of the sport to minorities and foreign players greatly boosted the overall quality of play. You could field a heck of a team of black and hispanic players who debuted in that period and would not have been allowed to play before 1947: Mays, Clemente, Aaron, Robinson, McCovey, Banks, Gibson, etc. The earlier eras of segregated baseball had to have suffered qualitatively. Plus, I think the early Topps and Bowman cards are among the nicest ever made. From a sheer aesthetic standpoint, I'll take the 1953 Bowman, 1954 Topps and 1956 Topps sets over most any others.

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Posted By: Dave

I searched my copies of cards, I don't have T202 or any M cards. I did find the following cards images. Thanks to Dan Austin's Virtual Card Collection, Vintage Cardboard, and a recent ebay auction for the T6.

The T6 is the only one that is a similar pose: the same throwing stand and smirk, but this time on a pitcher's mound.




These are E96, E98, T6, T205, and T207.

There is another T207, same pose without the D on the cap, I think.

Edited to add one more - an E97. Not with the smirk, though.

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Posted By: Brett

now if you had a George Mullen autograph to go along with that, it would be awesome !

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Posted By: Joann

Dave - thx for digging up the additional Mullin 'smirky throw' version. I am unfamiliar w/one of the web sites you cited, but will check it out. Here is one that I'm on absolutely all the time to find different card images:

http://www.deliafamily.net/BBCI/Control/MainMenu.php

Another comment on era of cards that is so obvious it goes without saying. But think about all the caramel cards, tobacco cards, etc, that show action poses (not including those w/plain colored backgrounds). All daylight. Does that ever just kind of hit you? Yes, some were studio shots, like N172. But most sets with action shots all show nice colorful daytime scenes - colorful skies, backgrounds, etc. Even when they created backgrounds (like the Mullin t206 above) they inserted daytime scenes. They never even contemplated baseball and nighttime together. I'm not sure why I find that cool. Just that I do.

I wonder what a t206 would look like if nighttime/stadium lights action shots had been available to colorize? That's fun to imagine too.

J