Eddie Grant is among the more popular pre-war players that are collected despite the fact that he wasn’t a star. Grant played in the majors with the Cleveland Naps, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, and New York Giants over a 10-year career, so he hung around quite a bit. A solid player, Grant never was really a star with a career
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The E90-1 American Caramel set is one of the most popular caramel card sets of all time. Featuring 121 cards and Joe Jackson’s major league rookie issue, it’s very popular with collectors despite the fact that completing the entire set isn’t too easy. But while the fronts of the cards get the most attention, what’s printed on the back has
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In the pre-war era, numerous sets that were often produced in England and other countries featuring sports of the world. The gist was to create a set that showed what sports were popular in different parts of the world. Today, the sets are usually a little harder to find here in the U.S. They remain popular but some are especially
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The majority of pre-war baseball cards were typically included inside of some kind of packaging along with another product. Some of those products were boxes of cigarettes (i.e. tobacco cards) and others were gum (gum cards). Others, still, were inside of bread and bakery products. Or other types of food and beverage products. And others were found inside of publications
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Famed hobbyist Jefferson Burdick provided the American Card Catalog, arguably the most valuable resource in the history of card collecting. Despite that comprehensive publication and more in-depth ones that have been released since then, it’s clear that many mysteries remain surrounding pre-war cards. That’s evident in the many missing gaps, of course. For example, who printed and distributed the Anonymous
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The 1910 E104 Nadja is one of the rarest caramel issues. With three subsets, there are about 70 known cards in the set. A new one has recently found its way onto the checklist. In May 2018, collector Jon Gudorf contacted me regarding a card he had in his collection for some time – a Fred Tenney E104-3. The E104-3
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A while back, I wrote about the difficulty in completing the E91 American Caramel set. While that issue is indeed significantly harder than knocking out the more popular 1909-11 E90-1 American Caramel issue, there are lots of challenges with this set, too. I started an E90-1 set maybe about two years ago initially. After selling and trading off some pieces
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Early caramel cards (known as E-Cards) are certainly collected but tobacco cards still remain king of the popularity contest when it comes to pre-war issues. T205 and T206 are among the most widely collected sets and while things like the early caramel cards are desirable, they aren’t nearly on the radar of as many people. One of the biggest reasons
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Most baseball card collectors break into the hobby by collecting issues of current players and teams. That’s only natural. I started collecting cards back in 1986 and my focus quickly shifted to cards of New York Mets players as that was my favorite childhood team. My path to pre-war cards, if you’re interested, has been documented here. But as many
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One of the more common questions I get is what really defines a pre-war card? The most basic answer is that it’s often defined as several different ways. The truest definition, to me, is all cards printed in 1939 or earlier. But I wanted to cover the different sort of answers that are sort of floating around out there and
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The 1914 Cracker Jack cards (and, subsequently, the 1915 Cracker Jacks) are among the most popular pre-war cards of all time. The cards are known for their bright red backgrounds and some poses, particularly the Joe Jackson and Ty Cobb cards, are iconic images. The cards, if you’re unfamiliar with them, were included inside of Cracker Jack products at a
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The Honus Wagner T206 card is easily the most important, and the most valuable, card in the hobby. Its legendary status has propelled it to a seven-figure card and it’s easily the most recognizable card of all time. One recently sold for more than $3 million. But while the card is rare, it’s not nearly as rare as a lot
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