An 1880's Baseball Trade Card Added to My Collection

Burdock Blood Bitter is the cure for you, or at least that's what this c.1880's Victorian Trade Card claims.

Featured here is the newest addition to my growing collection of late-19th Century Baseball-themed trade cards.  It features an advertising card of a well dressed boy in a striped jersey top and bloomer-style pants.  Best of all, he's eyeing a high flying eephus-style pitch.  No doubt, he is aiming to whack the cover off the ball.  Although, he does look a bit too relaxed in his stance.  I'd like to see him open up a bit.  Furthermore, he holds the bat like a Rod Carew, which worked for him, but is likely to result in a weakly hit grounder for this lad.

The card measures approximately 4 3/16" X 6 1/2" and has a printers mark on the bottom left; "B 359".  It has been previously cataloged in the Keetz Guide of Baseball Advertising Trade Cards as card #210 of single issued cards.  Typically, these trade cards were sold by printers to various businesses for use as an advertising medium.  In this case, Burdock Blood Bitters, a cure-all for stomach ailments and cramps, had the printer place their sales pitch on the reverse, and allowed a retailer in Calais, Vermont to distribute it to their customers.

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A Victorian Trade Card Set - Corner Clefs Series H804-10

Here is another 1880's Victorian Baseball Trade Card set in my collection.  This time I feature a set commonly known as the Corner Clefs Series, H804-10.

There are 8 cards total in a set and they measure approximately 2 3/4" x 4 3/16".  They are notable for their striped hats and socks, olive colored background and for having a border design reminiscent of a musical symbol.  A description (or name) of the card is at the bottom.  As is usual, the characters on the cards are all comically drawn.

Unfortunately, the first 6 cards shown here from my collection are likely trimmed just a bit (although a couple do not exhibit the traits I would expect to see from a trim job), and the last two are clearly their original size.  Trimming of trade cards is not unusual.  In fact, it's commonplace.  These cards were designed to be collected and glued into scrapbooks, so borders were often cut to create more space. 

Check out the entire 8 card set in this post.  The 8 cards are:

• A Fly
• A Heavy Hit
• A Short-Stop
• A Twister
• Hold Your Base!
• Our Side Has Won
• Score One
• The Umpire

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A Victorian Trade Card Set - 1878 Forbes Co. Series of 6 Base Ball Comic Cards

It recently occurred to me that I hadn't posted anything about one of my favorite collecting subjects in almost a year.

Other than Dodgers memorabilia, I am a passionate collector of 19th Century Base Ball themed Victorian Trade Cards.  Go here to see my previous post on this collecting genre, and here for a little history about what these cards are.

The below cards are commonly known by the American Card Catalog (ACC) number #H804-6 and are called the Forbes Co. Series.  A complete set consist of 6 cards, measure 3" x 4 11/16", and are blank backed.  Also, at the very bottom are the printed notations "Forbes Co. Boston" and "Copyright 1878".

As you can see, a clothing company is the advertiser on the below cards.  Typically, these cards were sold blank to a retail establishment, and they would stamp their name on the front.

I love the artwork and outlandish drawings of the Base Ball players on these cards.  You just can't help but snicker when looking at them.

In my experience, these are fairly common; as Base Ball trade cards go, and can be purchased for about $20 to $50 a piece in today's market. 

These 6 cards in this first grouping have red colored letters.  As you read further below, I make note that there are another two variations of the set available.  The previous guide on Base Ball trade cards, called the Keetz guide, does not make note of these other variations.

Before I tell you about those two other set variations, I wanted to point out a notation found on the reverse of one of the cards in my collection.  Check it out below.

It provides information about the original cost of these cards.  As you can see, they were sold by Union Card Company for $0.45 per 100 cards, or $3.75 per 1,000 cards.  Of special note is that the seller is Union Card Company of Montepelier, Vermont.

That little bit of information at the end appears to run counter to what was commonly understood about the set.  Forbes Co., a well known trade card publisher, is linked as the manufacturer of these cards since their name is indicated on the front.  The card I have, on the other hand, appears to indicate that Union Card Co. also produced the cards.

So, what gives?

I wish I knew, but it does add a little bit of mystery.

As indicated previously, there are two other variations to this set.  Check them out below.

The following 6 cards all feature black lettering at the top. 

These next 6 cards feature no lettering at all.

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A 19th Century Victorian Baseball Trade Card Purchase

Since the start of this blog in 2006 I have periodically shared my collection and love of Victorian-era Baseball-themed trade cards.  See my past post focused on Victorian Era Trade Cards here.  These are little known collectibles that came out in the late 1800's, and ushered in the beginning of card collecting in America.  From something I previously written,

Trade Cards are one of the more interesting hobbies to crop up in American history. It originally started in the late 1870's and thrived throughout the rest of the century (as well as several decades into the 20th Century). It became one of America's early fads and collecting crazes. They started out as business/ advertising cards given away to customers. The name of the establishment would be printed on the front with a simple design around the edges. Soon the designs became more ornate and customers started collecting them to put into scrapbooks. This started the age of Victorian scrapbooking in America.

The design and themes of the cards became supreme. Cards where as small as a modern business cards to as large as a piece of notebook paper. They came in every color in the rainbow. Printing companies where marketing special art work and themes to storefronts across the country. Flowers, landscapes, babies, children playing are the most common themes. Less common are politicians, buildings, Black Americana and sporting activities. Sporting activities include roller skating, tennis, curling, ice skating, horse racing and baseball, among others. It really is an early example of card collecting in America.

Featured above is a Baseball trade card that I recently purchased through an auction house that specializes in trade cards.  It is the 2nd different variation of this design that I have in my collection.  The above card measures approx. 5" x 8", is on fairly thick cardboard stock, and is blanked-backed.  Furthermore, there is writing on the reverse (possibly from the original previous owner) saying:

"Warren Stover, from your teacher
Bessie Bevins"

Over the coming months I will endeavor to share more trade cards from my collection, so stay tuned.

BTW, below is a scan of the other variation of this card in my collection.  The below card is on thin stock and much smaller than  the above card.  It measures about 2.5" x 4.5" - a more traditional size for trade cards.  Also, you can see advertising printed on the front for White Sewing Machine out of Cleveland, Ohio.

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Collection: Some Presidential Trade Cards

Following up last weekends post featuring the 1965 Topps Presidents and Famous Americans set, check out a group of 4 Victorian era 19th century trade cards of some Presidents.  These date to at least 1885 to 1889 based upon the printing on the Grover Cleveland card above.  The Cleveland is clearly the last card in the set since it refers to his time in office as "President from 1885" while the other cards give the range of years they were in office. 

I don't know much about the set overall.  It includes an advertisement for The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company at the bottom, which is common for these kinds of cards.  The backs are blank.  As I had written previously:

Trade Cards are one of the more interesting hobbies to crop up in American history. It originally started in the late 1870's and thrived throughout the rest of the century. It became one of America's early fads and collecting crazes. They started out as business/ advertising cards given away to customers. The name of the establishment would be printed on the front with a simple design around the edges. Soon the designs became more ornate and customers started collecting them to put into scrapbooks. This started the age of Victorian scrapbooking in America.

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The Cholera Nine

This is probably one of the more morbid Baseball related collectibles in existence. It is also incredibly awesome.

(Auction Link)

This is a late 19th century Victorian Trade Card, likely dating to the mid to late 1880's. It was produced by Indianapolis printer Wm. B. Buford Lithography for Dr. Joseph Haas, V.S.- a producer of veterinarian medicines.

If you're not familiar with this genre of collecting here is a brief primer. Trade Cards originally started in the late 1870's and thrived throughout the rest of that century. It became one of America's early fads and collecting crazes. They started out as business/ advertising cards given away to customers. As designs became more ornate customers started collecting them to put into scrapbooks. This started the age of scrapbooking in America. Flowers, landscapes, babies, children playing are the most common themes. Less common are politicians, buildings, Black Americana and sporting activities; including Baseball.

Anyway, the above card features the Haas Baseball team comprising of hogs defeating the Cholera Nine. Obviously, they are equating his medicine as being a cure-all to this deadly disease. I wondered, though, pigs can get cholera? Apparently so.

This card is very rare and never pops up for auction anywhere. It has an opening bid of $150.00 at The Trade Card Place so it certainly will not come cheap. On an aside, I had wanted to keep this auction house to myself since it has provided me a wealth of opportunities to get some great rare stuff with little competition, but with this card coming up I just couldn't resist sharing it. Besides, it is priced a bit out of my price range at the moment.

eBay Buy: A Victorian Trade Card

My favorite cards to collect are Victorian era Baseball themed trade cards. They date from about the 1870's to the 1890's and can be very scarce. As I had written previously,

It became one of America's early fads and collecting crazes. They started out as business/ advertising cards given away to customers. The name of the establishment would be printed on the front with a simple design around the edges. Soon the designs became more ornate and customers started collecting them to put into scrapbooks. This started the age of Victorian scrapbooking in America.

Below is a trade card i picked up on eBay a couple of weeks ago. I had been searching for ages for this particular card. It features an afternoon Base Ball game with the crowd in the background. The umpire always fearful of a wild throw sits comfortably inside a birdcage style cage to protect him from danger. I can imagine sitting on the sidelines with an afternoon meal watching the drama unfold before me.
I can never get enough of these inserted autographed cards. They just look great. Below is a Paul LoDuca 2003 Donruss auto card. Since LoDuca's slide from superstar catcher to a "juicing" has-been his cards have become very affordable. I paid 99 cents for this one. The shipping alone cost three times as much as the card.

Collection: Victorian Trade Cards- Merchant's Gargling Oil

The Trade Cards below are the most common of all Baseball themed trade cards. They are commonly known as H804-7 Merchant's Gargling Oil, have 5 cards to the set, were made in the 1880's and are known to have been produced by up to 4 different printers. It comes in many different shades, colors and variations.

A vast majority of the cards were produced for Merchant's Gargling Oil which was some sort of castor oil/cough syrup/miracle drink sold at time. In fact, it is rare to find this card advertising a different product. Also, another rarity are the blue and yellow background versions produced by The Courier Lithograph Company.

Photoalbum Link: Victorian Trade Cards:

Collection: Victorian Trade Cards- Baby Talk Part II

Below I've added more pics from my Victorian Baseball card collection. As we move closer to Opening Day I'll work on trying to scan more items from my collection.

This is one of the more colorful Baseball themed cards put together in the 1880's. They are called H804-1B Baby Talk Red Borders, and is the second of three different Baby Talk sets I've featured recently. Tobin Lithographs produced the cards in 1889. It consist of 9 cards featuring babies playing our favorite game. They are slightly smaller than a postcard and typically feature advertising stamped on the front or back of the card.
On the bottom left are the words of these young children speaking "Baby Talk." Also, these cards are unique since they refer to actual people and ballplayers. Lord Fauntleroy, a children's book writer, is given a card as well as ballplayers Cap Anson as "Baby Anson, " and Mike Kelly as "Baby Kelly."
These cards are relatively inexpensive. On eBay I would regularly see Baby Talk Red Border cards selling for between $30.00 to $60.00 a piece in EX condition. For being over 100 years old that's not too bad.

Photoalbum Link: Victorian Trade Cards:

Collection: Victorian Trade Cards- Tobin Lithographs

Below is one of the rarer and most sought after Baseball trade cards around. They are plainly named Tobin Lithographs after its manufacturer, and were produced in 1887. These cards feature cartoon like pictures of actual ballplayers from the period. This is one of the few trade card sets that actually refers to a specific player. Some of the greatest players from the 19th Century are represented. Players include Smiling Mickey Welch, Tim Keefe, Big Dan Brouthers, Mike King Kelly, Jack Glasscock, Cap Anson, Charlie Ferguson, Ed Andrews, Paul Hines and Jim McCormick.

Collection: Victorian Trade Cards- Baby Talk

19th Century Victorian trade cards with Baseball themes are my favorite type of memorabilia to collect. First of all, they can be very difficult to come across. So the challenge of completing a set is great. More importantly, though, is that these cards can have some of the most charming or slapstick hilarious pictures on them. I've seen cards where they show a team gang tackling an umpire to cartoons of a player getting hit in the face with a ball.
From my story I wrote in September 2006:

Trade Cards are one of the more interesting hobbies to crop up in American history. It originally started in the late 1870's and thrived throughout the rest of the century. It became one of America's early fads and collecting crazes. They started out as business/ advertising cards given away to customers. The name of the establishment would be printed on the front with a simple design around the edges. Soon the designs became more ornate and customers started collecting them to put into scrapbooks. This started the age of Victorian scrapbooking in America.

Baseball themed cards represent an infinitesimally small amount of total trade cards in existence.
The set I'm highlighting from my collection is called H804-1A Baby Talk Black Borders. This is one of three different sets that exist under the Baby Talk genre. It was produced in 1880's and is complete with a total of 10 cards. As the name of the set suggest the cards have titles on the bottom left of the cards that represent the spoken word of children. There are phrases like "Tum on, ets' p'ay ball!" and "No, I Didn' stike at dot!" Most collectors consider it complete at 9, but there is one card, that has no writing on it, (on the bottom right below) that I'm convinced belongs to this set.

eBay Buy: 19th Century Baseball Trade Card: Tobin Lithographs

This is one of my favorite buys of the year. It's a 19th Century Baseball themed trade card made by Tobin Lithographs in NY. This particular set is known as H804-23 Tobin "149" Series. It was made circa 1888 and is one of the rarer sets out there. Over the past several years I've only seen a handful of these on eBay, so I'm glad I was able to grab this one. Unfortunately, it has a brown stain through the middle, but it still presents fine.

Trade Cards are one of the more interesting hobbies to crop up in American history. It originally started in the late 1870's and thrived throughout the rest of the century. It became one of America's early fads and collecting crazes. They started out as business/ advertising cards given away to customers. The name of the establishment would be printed on the front with a simple design around the edges. Soon the designs became more ornate and customers started collecting them to put into scrapbooks. This started the age of Victorian scrapbooking in America.

The design and themes of the cards became supreme. Cards where as small as a modern business cards to as large as a piece of notebook paper. They came in every color in the rainbow. Printing companies where marketing special art work and themes to storefronts across the country. Flowers, landscapes, babies, children playing are the most common themes. Less common are politicians, buildings, Black Americana and sporting activities. Sporting activities include roller skating, tennis, curling, ice skating, horse racing and baseball, among others. It really is an early example of card collecting in America.

Today you can still find scrapbooks with hundreds of trade cards glued inside and they are still collected today.

eBay Find: Rare 19th Century Baseball Trade Card Set

This week I was watching one particular auction consisting of a group of very rare 19th Century Baseball Trade Cards. These cards are very difficult to find. This is the fist time I had seen the cards in nearly 5 years of scouring eBay and local card shows. Frank Keetz, who cataloged Baseball themed trade cards in 1997, titled these cards as H804-28 Large Head Series. They measure 2 7/8" x 4 1/4". Also, in Keetz's guide he cataloged only 2 cards from the set. So 2 cards in the set that sold where previously uncataloged. The card with the player holding the bat and the card with the player catching the ball while in a seated position are the previously uncataloged cards.
The group of 4 cards sold for an astounding $1,439.00.

National Pick-Ups

Here are some of the items I picked up at the National this past weekend.Above is a late 19th Century Baseball themed Victorian Trade Card I found on the last day. It's a bit beat up on the top, but is very rare. In fact, since I started my own collection of Trade Cards 6 years ago I had never seen this example.

Here are 4 more T206 cards of the Brooklyn Dodgers (Superbas or is it Bridegrooms).

e75 Jack Johnson American Caramel card. This is in rough condition, but was inexpensive and fills a hole in my collection.
Above are 2 Dodgers mini pennants I picked up. They measure approximately 1 inch by 2 inches and were made in the 40's or 50's. I love this oddball stuff.

I also picked up 7 cards for my 1880's Terrors of America set, a bunch of 1964 Topps Giant cards for my set (i need 2 more), a bunch of Callahans for my set and the final 3 cards for my 1972 Topps Set. Also, I picked up some oddball team issues photos and advertising promos of various Dodger players from the 60's to 70's. I'll post some of these shortly.

Update:Above is a scan of the 7 Terrors of America cards I picked up last weekend. This is a late 19th Century tabacco card insert featuring playful images of kids causing trouble. This set cracks me up.

For more pics of cards purchased at the National last weekend from other vintage collectors please check out the Vintage Baseball Card Forum: