The National Sports Collectors Convention will have a Case Break Pavilion again this year, this time keeping some longer hours and including an area for vintage set breaks. Show organizers say the area will open for a “Preview Night” on Tuesday, August 2 from 6:30 PM -12:30 AM. Attendees interested in joining breaks or there to watch and/or learn will be admitted free. The … [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...]
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...]
Metropolitan Museum of Art Digitizing Burdick Collection
From now through mid-June, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, home to the massive collection of vintage baseball cards donated by the late hobby pioneer Jefferson R. Burdick, is showcasing cards illustrating some of the earliest and most illustrious players who moved from the Negro Leagues into the Majors. That's not the most exciting news for collectors, … [Read more...]
Jefferson Burdick Nominated for Reliquary Shrine
He literally wrote the book on baseball card classification, devoting the majority of his life to what was then a fringe hobby at best for adults. Now, the late Jefferson Burdick's accomplishments have him up for an honor bestowed by an organization that believes baseball is more than just stats. … [Read more...]