Oldest commercially produced baseball card?

[barrysloate]

I noticed that too Gary, and I'm picturing those composite CdV's that REA had several years back. But I'm not sure.

And I don't believe that Peck & Snyder issued the Jim Creighton. Corey would need to answer, but as I recall there is no store advertising on the reverse.

[1880nonsports]

Part of the problem in analyzing what would constitute a card for this discussion would be which of the following are viable candidates to be considered cards:

distributed contemporaneously alongside product
distributed in a product
available as a premium for buying a product
used in an exchange such as a ticket or currency
sold as novelty or memento

As I collect "insert" cards and the discussion is baseball - I think the N167 OJ's best fit the bill. There are depictions of base ball on the pages of books followed chronologically by steel engravings and CDV's, tintypes, the trade cards, and finally the tobacco/gum inserts. I prefer to keep each distinct. Should we also be discussing the manufacturer's motivation to define a card? Does an items size, construction, or production edify our definition?

[barrysloate]

Henry- a thought about the N167: They depict only NY Giants, Goodwin and Co. was based in New York, they clearly were issued in a very small quantity compared to the N172....so is it possible they were only available in the New York metropolitan area and virtually unknown anywhere else? If that is the case, then it cannot be considered the first nationally distributed set. That honor would go to N172.

I do consider N167 to be a very early baseball card set, but perhaps a regional one, and not unlike the Peck and Snyder issue.

[1880nonsports]

but I zeroed in on commercially produced in OP and kind of lost track of where the thread had morphed. I'm not really a base ball guy too much anymore - and my OJ book not at hand. What is the earliest attributed date for a card of a base ball player from the N172 set? Did the first series of cards pre-date the N173 cabinets initial production?

[wonkaticket]

I would lean towards N167 myself as the first true insert baseball card.

[E93]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Henry- a thought about the N167: They depict only NY Giants, Goodwin and Co. was based in New York, they clearly were issued in a very small quantity compared to the N172....so is it possible they were only available in the New York metropolitan area and virtually unknown anywhere else? If that is the case, then it cannot be considered the first nationally distributed set. That honor would go to N172..

Yes, but it can be considered the first baseball card set. And New York was really the center of baseball back then too.
JimB

[oldjudge]

Jim--there are several definitions that could be used to denote the first baseball card, and by neither would I consider Peck and Snyder to be it. By the broad definition I think Rob was right and the 1863 Grand Match souvenir tickets are the first. By a more conventional card definition, I think that the 1886 issues are the first. This would include New York Kalamazoo Bats and N167s.

[Leon]

I still consider the 1869 Peck and Snyder as the first major league card. As has been said a lot of times a bias is had towards what we own. For my own edification is there another major league ballplayer card before it, where the player(s) on it were formally paid?

[oldjudge]

First, being a professional is no criteria for a baseball card. However, yes. The 1863 Grand Match souvenir tickets paid the players whose images appeared on the tickets.

[E93]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Jim--there are several definitions that could be used to denote the first baseball card, and by neither would I consider Peck and Snyder to be it. By the broad definition I think Rob was right and the 1863 Grand Match souvenir tickets are the first. By a more conventional card definition, I think that the 1886 issues are the first. This would include New York Kalamazoo Bats and N167s.

Hi Jay,
I agree with you regarding conventional card definitions. That is why I argued that N167s are the only ones that need no further explanation or defense with regard to actually being a card rather than something else.

I would also argue, as I did in my Old Cardboard article on the set that the most reasonable date of issue for the N167 set is 1885, thus pre-dating even KBats.
JimB