M-Cards were defined as 'Periodical Issues' by Jefferson Burdick in his American Card Catalog. While not generally as widely collected as caramel or tobacco cards, several M-Card sets are extremely popular with pre-war collectors. One interesting feature of the classification that it includes a wide range of types of collectibles that were related to publications, including … [Read more...]
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1933 George C. Miller Set: Beautiful, But Challenging
As far as collectors of vintage baseball cards are concerned, not many sets are as challenging and rewarding as the 1933 George C. Miller set. The issue not only has a high artistic quality but is packed full of key players despite its small size and a Babe Ruth omission. A regional issue which was distributed in the Greater Boston area alone, this Depression era set is … [Read more...]
American Card Catalog Classifications For Dummies
Jefferson Burdick's American Card Catalog is a decades-old guide that is still used by collectors today. While we don't really classify modern sets in the same way, Burdick's reference book was essential to cataloguing older sets of cards that were distributed by various types of companies. Burdick used simple letter classifications to organize sets. Many vintage and … [Read more...]
SI Vault’s ‘Evolution of Baseball Cards’
Sports Illustrated recently produced a 21-minute podcast on the evolution of baseball cards. Beginning in the 19th century when the love of cigarettes grew and created a need and desire for packaging stiffeners to the gum-less packaging and on-demand world of the 21st century, the segment runs the gamut. There are interview clips with Freyda Spira, a curator at the … [Read more...]
Baseball Card Exhibit at The Met Opens Next Week
Since the mid-19th century, when the New York Knickerbockers played the first organized baseball games using modern-day rules, New York has been home to some of the sport’s most successful and beloved teams. Opening June 10 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition The Old Ball Game: New York Baseball, 1887–1977 will include nearly 400 baseball cards featuring … [Read more...]
Digitization Bringing Jefferson Burdick Collection to All
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York houses some true masterpieces by the world’s greatest artists. Vincent Van Gogh. Pablo Picasso. Salvador Dali. And Jefferson Burdick. That’s right. Burdick, the father of baseball card collecting, is an artist in his own right. His collection of cards and other ephemera, located in the museum’s drawing and prints department, … [Read more...]
Burdick Letters at Auction
Letters from Jefferson Burdick to his fellow baseball card collecting pioneers are up for sale through Hunt Auctions. Burdick, who decades ago painstakingly catalogued thousands of cards as he grew his remarkable collection, died in 1963, but the letters provide some important insight into the man few of today's collectors ever knew. In one letter he wrote to Wagner … [Read more...]
News and Notes: Lawsuit Over Photos; NFL Player’s Stuff Missing; Burdick Letter
A collection of more than 250,000 vintage baseball images hangs in the balance after a lawsuit was filed recently in Arkansas. According to a report from ArkansasBusiness.com, the heir and former owner of the George Burke and George Brace Collection, filed a breach of contract lawsuit against North Little Rock businessman John Rogers and his company, which purchased the … [Read more...]
Jefferson Burdick’s Football Card Collection Going on Display
On the occasion of the upcoming Super Bowl—the first ever played in the New York area—The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display a selection of vintage football cards from its celebrated Jefferson R. Burdick Collection of printed ephemera. Opening January 24, Gridiron Greats: Vintage Football Cards in the Collection of Jefferson R. Burdick will feature some 150 football … [Read more...]
Museum Working to Put Jefferson Burdick Collection Online
We’ll never know what Jefferson Burdick would have thought of the current state of baseball card collecting. The man who knew more about cards printed prior to the 1960’s than any man alive has been gone for almost 50 years but he left behind quite a legacy. The man who virtually invented the system still used today to identify various issues (T for tobacco and a number to … [Read more...]
