1865 Brooklyn Atlantics CDV for sale

[drc]

I didn't read all the posts. I just zoomed to the end and posted my opinion.

[Exhibitman]

"The nit-picking part here is that the definition of a “baseball card” has always been a card or similar item depicting a player or team that was designed to help sell another product."

Sez who? The Lord Commissioner of Baseball Cards? I must have missed that memo. I guess that means none of these are baseball cards:

[drc]

I would say if there's no advertising/promotion of another product, but they were commercially sold as collectibles, that too would count as trading cards.

There will be a question by some about the size (another technicality), but Exhibits were sold as collectibles so would fit my definition of a baseball card in that aspect.

Keeping my opinion to myself, but a lot of folks on this board don't consider postcards to be trading cards, advertising splashed across them or not. They just consider pcs something different.

[barrysloate]

Keith's article focused on one aspect of what constitutes a baseball card, and that is how the were distributed. Typically baseball cards are readily available to the public, whether found in a box of cigarettes, a wax pack with bubble gum, a penny exhibit machine, or through some type of promotion. Even Peck & Snyders would fit into that category as anyone could walk into their store and purchase one of their photographic trade cards.

But I do not believe the general public had access to a standard CdV. That Brooklyn Atlantics was likely made for the members of the team to give out to their friends and family. The average fan of the team probably didn't even know they existed. And add to it that they had no advertising, they had no commercial value whatsoever.

So while there are various characteristics of a baseball card, and a CdV fits most of them, they were privately distributed and therefore different from traditional cards as we know them.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

they were privately distributed and therefore different from traditional cards as we know them.

they were certainly different, but given that there was only one, I would add an 'if' to your above statement. I gave some alternatives in my last post.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

But I do not believe the general public had access to a standard CdV. That Brooklyn Atlantics was likely made for the members of the team to give out to their friends and family. The average fan of the team probably didn't even know they existed. And add to it that they had no advertising, they had no commercial value whatsoever.

That's not quite accurate, Barry, at least w/r/t CDVs' availability and value as a commercial product. Some photographers made and sold CDVs of famous people to the general public as collectibles. They definitely had commercial value. Charles Deforest Fredricks had a studio and gallery in NYC from which he retailed his line of famous people CDVs called "Specialite". They were available to the general public as a commercial product. Here is an example:

[barrysloate]

Thanks Adam. Some were, of course, such as the Cincinnati Red Stockings with the ad for Chadwick's Game of Baseball. Many weren't however. I don't believe the Atlantics would have been available publicly.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Thanks Adam. Some were, of course, such as the Cincinnati Red Stockings with the ad for Chadwick's Game of Baseball. Many weren't however. I don't believe the Atlantics would have been available publicly.

Barry, I'm not understanding how you are coming up with that assumption. There was only one produced (as far as we can tell, and as evidenced by the fact that it's a photo affixed to a recycled mount), so there's no proof whatsoever as to what it's intended use actually was - it could have been exactly the same as the Cincinnati Red Stockings cdv, something to be handed out by players to family members, or any of the other possibilities that I listed earlier in this thread.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Sez who? The Lord Commissioner of Baseball Cards? I must have missed that memo.

It's understood

But I was kind of surprised that he proclaimed himself to be an expert on 19th century baseball cards - I've never seen any evidence of it.


Regarding cdv's, etc as advertisement. William T. Sherman wrote a letter to Napoleon Sarony, ordering cabinet photos of himself that he wished to sign at the bottom and give away. He complained that Sarony had used too much of the space at the bottom for his own studio information, and as such, it was a "Sarony advertisement". He threatened to use another photographer if Sarony wasn't willing to send him photos that did not have the Sarony information on the front.

Edited to add: “Enclosed is the check for $18. for the pictures sent—but the Special one—Imperial Mounted on a large sheet is not at all what I wrote for. Sheridan is dead, and could not if he would come to your Studio—the best photo I have of him is by C. Rankin of Washington and is on a panel 17 x 11 1/2 in which no margin at the top and sides but a good margin below for autograph, date & c. Such as a photograph should be. Gutekunst of Phila. promises me one of same size and kind of General Grant. Yours of me either 13,331 Cabinet—or 2945 panel 7 1/2 by 13 inches—No margins top or sides, but a full inch White Margin below—(without advertisement). Your photographs of Me are the best extant, but as issued are advertisements of ‘Sarony’ and not likenesses of Genl Sherman. I think you made a mistake and I tell you so with a Soldier’s frankness. ..."

[Matthew H]

The way I read into it, KO is slightly upset that the 'thing' was marketed as a baseball card and that it brought first baseball card money.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Matthew H

The way I read into it, KO is slightly upset that the 'thing' was marketed as a baseball card and that it brought first baseball card money.

For once I would like to see him write up his opinion BEFORE the event, as opposed to getting on a pedestal afterward and proclaiming how things should have been.

[aaroncc]

Originally Posted by Runscott

For once I would like to see him write up his opinion BEFORE the event, as opposed to getting on a pedestal afterward and proclaiming how things should have been.

I think his T206 Wagner is ugly.

[cyseymour]

What about 2013 Topps cards? Or the rack packs I bought in 1983? Those weren't distributed in order to promote a different product. Is Keith Olbermann arguing that 1983 Topps cards aren't baseball cards because they weren't produced in order to sell candy/tobacco/bread?

[Peter_Spaeth]

The many discussions we have had about what is and is not a baseball card just show that the question is really not objectively answerable. To me the Brooklyn thing is not a card but if it is to someone else so be it.

[barrysloate]

There are several characteristics which constitute what we all agree is a baseball card:

1) It's a rectangular piece of cardboard that depicts a baseball player or several players.
2) It's typically distributed to advertise a product, such as tobacco, candy, or gum.
3) It's widely distributed to the greatest number of people possible.
4) If you collect the whole bunch of them you will be able to complete a set.

The Atlantics CdV certainly depicts baseball players, but it contains no advertising, was selectively distributed, and is not part of a set. So it does not have all of the traits we typically associate with a baseball card.

When I first started specializing in 19th century baseball memorabilia in the late 1980's, there wasn't a single collector who called a CdV a baseball card. But that definition has changed over time, and now most collectors consider it to be one.

What do I think was most responsible for that change? The slab. When the TPG started slabbing them, we started calling them baseball cards. It's just part of how the hobby has evolved.