When trade cards became popular in the 1800s, few could have imagined their future importance. But those issues coupled with the emergence of American sports came together to provide the earliest sports cards and give the card collecting hobby its origins. What are Trade Cards? Trade cards, quite simply, were a mode of advertising for businesses, products, events, and all
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A Few Tips to Collecting Sets in the Pre-War Era There are all sorts of collectors out there. Some focus on individual players or teams. Some have a regional focus. Others are into type collecting, the art of trying to find a card from as many different types as possible (or some variation of that). But since I got into
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I have to preface this by saying, I’m not a huge graded card guy. As a set collector, my cards are often of the lower-grade variety. And I’ve generally handled enough cards in my time to be able to see/feel when something isn’t right with a card in one of my sets. That’s nothing against graded cards and, as I’ve
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Finding the first cards of early athletes can prove challenging Lots of collectors consider themselves to be rookie card enthusiasts. The idea of finding a player’s first card is often a lot of fun. Collecting rookie cards of modern players isn’t too hard. The biggest ‘problem’ is that rookie cards of baseball players these days usually come out long before
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Commence Shenanigans Against my better judgment I’m doing this for another day. Beyond that? Ehhh, I don’t know. I can only sing and dance for so long. If you missed yesterday’s post, you better start here. We’re onto Day 2 if you’re confused already. The National was open yesterday but it was more like a cold open. Dudes were riding
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I’ll admit to mostly being a fan of raw cards. Most readers here know what I’m talking about when I use that term but, if you are not, these are cards that have not been graded or authenticated by a third party. Buying raw cards always presents some risk, I suppose. But that’s also the case in buying graded cards,
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Early tobacco cards introduced the sport to America Quick – what are the earliest tennis players you can think of off the top of your head? Many collectors might reference early British star Fred Perry or American Bill Tilden, who starred in the 1920s. But few could tell you much about 19th Century Tennis, let alone name specific players. But
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When I initially finished creating the set database for baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, I really figured it would end there. In all, it was about a one-year project and that involved many months of working every spare hour on the project. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 sets on this site featuring those four sports and, as
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Many affordable pre-war cards are from across the pond I’m often asked about the best, most affordable ways to jump into pre-war card collecting. On the site, I’ve covered numerous topics, including some of the cheapest sets or how to spend your first $100 on pre-war cards. I’ve also covered some of the cheaper individual issues, which you can find
Read more‘It’s In The Details’ Title Cigarrillos Dolar Year 1920s Size Various Images Color Type Tobacco Number in Set Unknown 1920s Cigarrillos Dolar Color Set Overview Not much is known (at least in terms of American collecting) about these rare tobacco cards. But what we can say is that Cigarrillos Dolar issued a few series of cards with sports subjects. This
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About the W590 Strip Card Set The W590 strip cards were printed starting in 1925 and ending in 1931. How many years they were produced in between that time is unknown. But what we do know is that they were printed a few different times to reflect players switching teams and other changes. While the set is known for its
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Continuing on with the series of various types of cards, in this article I’m going to take a look at E-Cards. These cards are defined as early caramel and candy cards. They generally range from the early 1900s through the 1920s with a few exceptions. Here’s a brief history and rundown on these cards. The Be’gum’ning Okay, I’ll see myself
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