Baseball card

File:Examples of baseball cards from the 1950s to 1990s.png

Examples of baseball cards from the 1950s through 1990s from the United States, Canada, Japan and United Kingdom.

Baseball cards are a type of trading card typically printed on some sort of cardstock, featuring one or more baseball players or other baseball related editorial and are typically found in countries such as the United States, Canada, and Japan, where baseball is a popular sport and there are professional leagues. The obverse side normally features an image of the subject with identifying information such as name and team. The obverse can feature statistics, biographical information, or as many early cards did, advertising. There is no fixed size or shape of baseball cards, running the gamut from rectangular to circular, however modern North American cards have typically standardized on a 2.5 by 3.5 inch (6.35 cm by 8.89 cm) rectangular format.

Baseball cards in the United States

The majority of baseball cards are produced in the United States, as baseball developed there and the two dominant professional baseball leagues are headquartered there. Most early issues have been catalogued in "The American Card Catalogue" compiled by Jefferson Burdick.

Origins of American baseball cards

During the mid 19th Century in the United States, baseball and photography were both gaining popularity at the same time and many baseball players and teams posed for photographs, mirroring a trend throughout the greater society. During this time, baseball became increasingly popular and was forming many professional leagues. In 1868, a sporting goods company, created what is considered the first baseball card, a trade card featuring the Brooklyn Atlantics a leading team in the National Association of Base Ball Players. [1]

The trade cards, much akin to modern business cards, were roughly postcard sized and featured an advertisement for the company, typical of trade cards of the period. Given the popularity of the sport, various companies, not all sports related, used such trade cards in their advertising. The earliest cards featured photographs, typically black and white or sepia toned. As printing technology improved in the 1870s, later cards employed colored photographs or color artwork, sometimes in the form of a cartoon. In addition to the advertising function, some of the trade cards issued could be used to play a either a conventional card game or simulated baseball game.

Cigarette cards

The inamous Honus Wagner card.

In 1885, the Allen and Ginter tobacco company introduced a series of cigarette cards, small trade cards placed in a packet of cigarettes, which featured actresses, baseball players, Indian chiefs, and boxers as part of a promotional scheme and as packaging reinforcement. Several companies followed suit and issued cards featuring baseball players into the early part of the 20th Century.

The most famous single cigarette card came from American Tobacco Company's Sweet Caporal cigarettes. Part of their "T206" set, it featured Honus Wagner, a Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop (now a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame). Wagner objected to the publication of the card, either because he did not want to promote cigarette smoking by children or because he was not being paid, or both. At any rate, the card was withdrawn and at most a few dozen remain in existence. Its current value exceeds one million dollars. Recently, a different Wagner cigar card, made when he was a minor-leaguer with the Louisville, Kentucky Colonels has surfaced. Only one of these is known to exist.

Early 20th Centrury baseball cards

The majority of the early 20th Century baseball cards were produced by confectionary companies, as they had produced cards beginning in the late 1880s. The first major American set of the 20th century was issued by confectioner the Breisch-Williams Company in 1903 and 1904. Several other companies followed suit, most notably the American Caramel Company.

By the 1910s, the companies in other fields also were producing baseball cards, most notably The Sporting News; a weekly periodical which has been described as “The Bible of Baseball,” however the confectioners were the most active. The confectioner Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein was the first to add baseball cards as a prize in their caramel candy packaging. However, the most recognizable name was Cracker Jack, which produced two series of cards in 1914 and 1915 most notable for including players from the short lived Federal League. After a brief hiatus due to World War One, baseball card production resumed dominated by the confectionary companies through the 1920s.

Another development was from the Exhibit Supply Company of Chicago which produced postcard sized cards with black and white images of athletes, wrestlers, entertainment personalities, and other topics such as vehicles, for distribution in penny arcades. Despite their distribution in arcades, they are colloquially referred to among collectors as exhibit cards, after their manufacturer. The cards were near postcard size and featured black and white photos. The company’s baseball cards first appeared in 1921 and were issued until 1966.

In the 1933, three chewing gum manufacturers Delong, Goudey, and the George C. Miller Co. began to produce baseball cards, with National Chicle following a year later. Production of cards was dominated by these chewing gum companies, however production slowed as the Great Depression worsened and production was finally suspended for the duration of World War Two in order to support the war effort.

The modern era

As the wartime production transitioned into the post-war civilian consumer goods, baseball card production resumed. A chewing gum company, Bowman Gum (a successor company of Gum Inc.) confectioner the Leaf Candy Company picked up where the pre-war gum companies left off and in 1948; they produced sets which are considered the first modern baseball cards. Leaf bowed out after two years of production.

In 1951 Bowman faced new competition from New York City based Topps which issued its first two sets featuring current players, the “blue backs” and “red backs” which could be used to play a baseball card game. Topps issued its first traditional cards in 1952 and competed with Bowman to sign players to contracts to have their likenesses included on cards. In 1956, Topps bought out Bowman, making it the de facto national baseball card monopoly.

The Topps monopoly

Main article: Topps

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Topps Baseball cards from the 50s, 60s and 70s

With Topps a de facto monopoly and a stranglehold on player contracts, there was no easy way to break into the national market. However several regional sets featuring players from local teams, both major league and minor league, were issued by various companies, usually as a premium. On the national level, Post Cereals issued cards on cereal boxes from 1960 to 1963 and corporate sibling Jell-O issued virtually identical cards on the back of its packages in 1962 and 1963.

In 1959, another gum company, Fleer, signed Ted Williams to an exclusive contract and sold a set of cards featuring him. Williams retired in 1960 forcing Fleer to produce a set of Baseball Greats cards featuring retired players. Like the Topps cards, they were sold with gum. In 1963, Fleer produced a 67 card set of active players, which was not successful, as most players were contractually obligated to Topps.

That same year, however, Topps faced an attempt to undermine its position from the nascent players' union, the Major League Baseball Players Association. Struggling to raise funds, the MLBPA discovered that it could generate significant income by pooling the publicity rights of its members and offering companies a group license to use their images on various products. After initially putting players on Coca-Cola bottlecaps, the union concluded that the Topps contracts did not pay players adequately for their rights.

Stymied, Fleer turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly of the baseball card market.

MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller then approached Joel Shorin, the president of Topps, about renegotiating these contracts. At this time, Topps had every major league player under contract, generally for five years plus renewal options, so Shorin declined. After continued discussions went nowhere, the union before the 1968 season asked its members to stop signing renewals on these contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players (with gum) starting in 1973. Although Fleer declined the proposal, by the end of the year Topps had agreed to double its payments to each player from $125 to $250, and also to begin paying players a percentage of Topps' overall sales. The figure for individual player contracts has since increased to $500. Since then, Topps used individual player contracts as the basis for its baseball cards.

In the 1970s, several companies took advantage of this new licensing scheme, not to take on Topps, but to create premiums. Most notable are Kellogg’s who produced 3D cards inserted with cereal and Hostess which printed cards on packages of its baked goods.

In 1976, a company called TCMA which mainly produced minor league baseball cards attempted to enter the market and created a set of 630 cards commonly referred to as SSPC, which stood for the Sports Stars Publishing Company. TCMA published a baseball card magazine named Collectors Quarterly which it used to advertise its set offering it directly via mail order. However, the set was basically a failure, as it was unlicensed and brought about a cease and desist order from Topps.

The monopoly ends

In April 1975, Fleer asked for Topps to waive its exclusive rights and allow Fleer to produce stickers, stamps, or other small items featuring active baseball players. Topps refused, and Fleer then sued both Topps and the MLBPA to break the Topps monopoly. After several years of litigation, the court ordered the union to offer group licenses for baseball cards to companies other than Topps. Fleer and another company, Donruss, were thus allowed to begin making cards in 1981. Fleer's legal victory was overturned after one season, but they continued to manufacture cards, substituting stickers with team logos for gum.

The 1980s also gave rise to a massive collecting industry, with card shops springing up throughout the United States. This seed change in the hobby and the shift of supply from the traditional retail establishment to specialized retail establishments and caused a shift into baseball cards as a commodity. By the end of the decade, there were at least two more companies producing cards in addition to Topps, Fleer and Donruss. Of these, the two most notable are Score in 1988 and Upper Deck 1989.

The bubble bursts

The early 1990s market for cards was quite saturated with manufacturers issuing several sets apiece every year. The competition did improve the quality of the cards and created all sorts of promotional gimmicks to distinguish one brand from another and generate sales. However, no amount of promotion could fix the problems that the 1994 baseball strike brought upon Major League Baseball. Despite innovations such as Wizards of the Coast's MLB Showdown in 2001, the industry never recovered. By 2006, Topps and Upper Deck were the only companies producing baseball cards in the United States.

Baseball cards in Canada

The history of baseball cards in Canada parallels that of the United States. The first cards were trade cards, then cards issued with tobacco products and later candies and gum. The most notable set from the 1930s is the 1937 O-Pee-Chee set of 40 cards. Unlike most sets issued in Canada at the time, it was issued by a Canadian company instead of one from the United States.

The modern history of baseball cards began in 1952 when Topps started distributing its cards in Canada. In 1965, Topps licensed production to Canadian candy maker O-Pee-Chee. The O-Pee-Chee sets were mainly identical to the Topps sets until 1969, when the backs of the cards were branded O-Pee-Chee. In 1970, due to federal legislation, O-Pee-Chee was compelled to add French-language text to the backs of its baseball cards.[2] It also happened to be the year after the Montreal Expos began play in the majority Francophone province of Quebéc. O-Pee-Chee continued issuing Canadianised versions of the Topps set until 1992.

From 1985 until 1988 Donruss issued a parallel Canadian set under the Leaf name. The set was basically identical to the Donruss issues of the same years however it was bi-lingual. All the Leaf sets were produced in the United States.

There were several promotional issues issued by Canadian firms since Major League Baseball began in Canada in 1969. There were also several public safety sets issued, most notably the Toronto Blue Jays fire safety sets of the 1980s and early 1990s and distributed in the Toronto area. Intrestingly the cards were monolingual and only issued in English.

Baseball cards in the rest of the world

In 1987 and 1988 the American company Topps issued two series of American baseball cards featuring cards from American and Canadian Major League Baseball teams in the United Kingdom. The full colour cards were produced by Topps Irish Republic subsidiary company and contained explanations of baseball terms. Given the unfamiliarity of baseball in the United Kingdom, the issues were unsuccessful.

Anatomy of a modern baseball card

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Front of a 1984 Mookie Wilson baseball card, the O-Pee-Chee name replaced the Topps logo on the card.

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Bilingual back of a 1984 Mookie Wilson baseball card.

Most modern North American cards are typically a rectangular and measure 2.5 by 3.5 inches (6.35 cm by 8.89 cm). The obverse side usually features an image of the subject, in most cases a player, with identifying information such as name and team. The obverse of a card usually features player statistics and some biographical information.

External links

• Illustrated History of 19th Century Baseball Cards
• memory.loc.gov Library of Congress collection of early baseball card images
• SportsCardPedia, a sports card wiki
• Old Baseball Cards, a collector group of older baseball cards