Eventually they would be sold with more kid-oriented products like caramels and bubble gum but 110 years ago, if you wanted a picture of a professional baseball player (and who wouldn't before color magazines, TV or even radio?), you had to have access to tobacco, or at least someone who used it. When the American Tobacco Company's massive promotion began in 1909, word … [Read more...] about Selling Packs with T206 Cards in 1909 Was Sometimes Hazardous
1909
Mathewson, Cobb Autographed Baseball Auction at 1909 Charity Game
If you think that autographed memorabilia items are a recent phenomenon, think again. More than a century ago, the Detroit Tigers and the New York Highlanders met in a charity game for the benefit of Sam Crane, a former major-leaguer who became the dean of New York City’s sports writing corps during his quarter century with the New York Journal-American. The Tigers, winners … [Read more...] about Mathewson, Cobb Autographed Baseball Auction at 1909 Charity Game
Not Always Cardboard: Unusual Materials Used to Make Trading Cards
By tradition, trading cards have been made out of rectangular cardstock. In fact, the dictionary definition of card usually is a rectangular piece of cardstock or heavy paper. However, card companies have at times stretched or radically broken the trading card rules and issued cards, or at least card-related collectibles, using unusual materials and/or different … [Read more...] about Not Always Cardboard: Unusual Materials Used to Make Trading Cards
1909 Philadelphia Caramel Cards Found in Old Cookie Tin
The population of 1909 Philadelphia Caramel (E95) baseball cards has grown by 25 after a remarkable discovery in New Jersey. A volunteer digging through mounds of material left inside the Parker Homestead in Little Silver recently found them, tucked safely inside an old cookie tin that had been placed in a box with hundreds of postcards and other items. The lot contains two … [Read more...] about 1909 Philadelphia Caramel Cards Found in Old Cookie Tin
Helmar Card of the Week: Boss Schmidt, 1909 “Our Guy” Series
The position of catcher has always been the most physically demanding position, by far, in baseball. As such, it has appealed to some of the roughest characters ever to wear a uniform; tough men who have taken pride at tackling the most challenging role in sports. George Ellard, a backstop for the 1869 Red Stockings, grasped the flavor of it when he said, “We used no mattress … [Read more...] about Helmar Card of the Week: Boss Schmidt, 1909 “Our Guy” Series
T206 Cards Caused Uproar Upon 1909 Release
Everyone who had a hand in their creation is gone. Those in charge of marketing them passed on decades ago. Even those who were just learning to read and write when they were released are dead and buried. Even though we can’t hear or see them talk about it anymore, though, what they put on the record more than a century ago is pretty clear. T206 baseball … [Read more...] about T206 Cards Caused Uproar Upon 1909 Release
Helmar Card of the Week: George Mullin, Tigers’ “Fugitive”
Cy Young, Eddie Plank, Rube Waddell, and “Big George” Mullin are legendary names that belong together. Um, hold on a minute there. Sure, the first three are the winningest American League pitchers of the 1901-1909 era. But George Mullin? Who is George Mullin? Born in Toledo on the Fourth of July, 1880, George Joseph Mullin was a gregarious and handsome man, blessed with a … [Read more...] about Helmar Card of the Week: George Mullin, Tigers’ “Fugitive”
Earliest Photo of a Knuckleball?
A newly uncovered photograph now up for auction seems to bring a new name into the discussion about the earliest knuckleball pitchers. That conversation always seems to start with Eddie Cicotte as the inventor—and he may be just that--but RMY Auctions is offering a 6x8” news photograph from 1908 showing a young Pittsburgh Pirates prospect with a grip that may be the first … [Read more...] about Earliest Photo of a Knuckleball?