How Baseball Cards Were Made in the 19th Century

[GaryPassamonte]

I enjoyed your post very much. I share your passion for 19th century baseball. It's also nice to see mention of Ross Barnes. He's one of my main collecting interests, having been born in my hometown. Here's one of the teams he played on. It's too bad his career ended before baseball cards flourished in the late 1880s. I can see him on an N162 or N28, N29.

[egbeachley]

Fantastic post!

I didn’t realize that they used several stones for each card. I assume one for each color but I see several shades of brown on a baseball bat, for example. A different stone for each shade as well?

[maniac_73]

Wow what a fantastic read! Thank you!

[wdwfan]

Awesome read. I am a history buff (was my major in college), and I love baseball history so much. I can't afford anything of the 1800s stuff and can barely afford much of the 1900s stuff. But I enjoy looking at it. Love the history of this game.

[Phil68]

Superb!

[BeanTown]

Grade post and let's all hope that one day TPGs will learn that most 19th century cards were hand collated.

[mouschi]

Thank you all for the comments so far! Specific responses below ...

Originally Posted by ocjack

Thanks. Interesting read and appreciate the pictures. And may I say that those are some of the best Grade 10 Allen and Ginter I have ever seen.

Thank you! Getting the entire set was a big deal for me (they came with the 40 others as well, but I sold them because I only care about baseball) - and they were all beautiful. The only real damage was to the backs!

Originally Posted by GaryPassamonte

I enjoyed your post very much. I share your passion for 19th century baseball. It's also nice to see mention of Ross Barnes. He's one of my main collecting interests, having been born in my hometown. Here's one of the teams he played on. It's too bad his career ended before baseball cards flourished in the late 1880s. I can see him on an N162 or N28, N29.

I agree! There are so many guys I would have loved to have seen in N28/N162/N172 form. Thanks for posting that pic - that piece is truly remarkable!

Originally Posted by egbeachley

Fantastic post!

I didn’t realize that they used several stones for each card. I assume one for each color but I see several shades of brown on a baseball bat, for example. A different stone for each shade as well?

There is a publication named "Prang's Prize Babies - How this picture is made." Here is a link to show the steps: https://gigi.mwa.org/netpub/server.n...ing=1&offset=0 - it shows there being 19 colors ... and in the text that they have even used 45 stones to create one lithograph. I always thought it was 4 or so. I'd love to know how many were used for the cards. As for the term "shade", I know I read it somewhere, but cannot place it. The link above does help illustrate how cumbersome it must have been.