Baseball Cards Blog - Everything To Know About Them

Since baseball flourished in popularity and became a professional sport during the late 1860s, a number of trade cards featuring baseball players appeared. In the 1970s, the USA manufactured a limited number of these cards. USA is said to be the originator of the cards. But, due to it's widespread popularity, these are also highly coveted in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Canada and Japan where there is a substantial fanbase of baseball in general. This a baseball cards blog and we’re going to know everything about it.

Production

Though the first baseball cards are produced in the United States, their production largely spread in other countries due to the game's ubiquity. Sets appeared in Japan as early as 1898, in Cuba and Canada in 1909 and 1912 respectively.

Size Of A Baseball Card

There is no strict limit to the shape or size of baseball cards. But, most of the currently produced cards are rectangular, measuring 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches (6.4cm by 8.9 cm)

Baseball Card Classification

As early baseball cards were primarily produced for marketing purposes, collectors started to classify to what ‘type’ they fell into. Jefferson Burdick implemented a system in this regard, known as “The American Card Catalog”. This is considered as the de facto standard of card classification among the Americans in 1951. But, total monopoly there.

Hence, sets like 1910 Philadelphia Caramels and 1909 Box Topps are referred to by their ACC catalog numbers (1206, E95 and W555 respectively).

Rare Cards

The rarity of a card is judged upon many metrics. Like, the card's condition, quality, supply and the number of collectors seeking them. Rare baseball cards are mostly vintage and very old. They also form limited edition sets. These cards have been mentioned in almost every baseball card blog.

Baseball cards with autograph on them increase in prices. Among other rare cards, there are also cards of baseball legends. e.g. Ty Cobb, Mike Trout, Honus Wagner, Jackie Robinson and others. These cards are sold upto millions of dollars. One rare card was sold in 2011 for over $45,800.

Baseball Card Collectors

Numerous card collectors have a prime focus on vintage baseball cards and can spend thousands of dollars to earn possesion of these. Crazy, right? Since rare cards are hard to obtain, collectors keep in contact with other card collectors and specialized dealers. Some rare cards also surface on eBay once in a while.

The Topps Monopoly

After Topps purchased Bowman, they had a strong hold on the player contracts. Very soon Topps had no competition and it was not possible for other companies to break into the national market. As such, Topps had a de facto monopoly. Topps also had some resistance from MLBPA in 1967 and also from Fleer.

Price Guide

Since, the online trading of baseball cards, price guides have been evolving. Beckett price guide is one of the famous price guide series. Beckett price guide is basically a graded card price guide. PSA also grades baseball cards similar to Beckett. Other price guides include cardprice.com or cardspriceguide.com which is a free site. That is all for this baseball cards blog.

This article covered all the major points you needed to know about baseball cards. Hopefully, this brief overview was helpful to you.