“…That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach”

-Aldous Huxley

  Have you ever wondered about the history behind your cards? Who it was that designed your 1911 T205 or 1941 Play Ball? How about the companies and products, or what America was like during the time in which they were issued?

These were some of the very same questions I kept asking myself when I first started out in the hobby. I started writing and researching  these topics after a conversation with a dealer who confided in me that he was too afraid to get into vintage sports cards because he didn’t know anything about them. Afterwards I thought if there was anything vintage sports cards had taught me growing up, was that not only was this a fun hobby, but was responsible for advancing my own education in ways I could never have imagined and I wanted to share this amazing hobby with you –consider me your guide into the 19th and 20th Centuries through cards…or that crazy professor you had back in college, you know, the one with the mustard stains on his necktie and that wild hair…but oddly good looking, yup that’s me – your modern-day card Professor - excluding the mustard stains.   

History Through Cards will show you how certain world, home front and economic events surrounding the people responsible for making your cards could affect production and what it means for collectors today. Just about everyone knows of the shortages in paper products, sugar, gum and ink which led to dramatic changes in trading card production during both World Wars. But how about things that wouldn’t even cross your mind? Events like a Temperance movement or a copyright law perhaps? How about the death of a Supreme Court Justice? Just like in the tv series Connections, there is evidence that the majority of companies and people producing our vintage cards were connected in some way to one another. For example, had Warren Bowman not taken a tour of the Wrigley plant, he may have never started his own company which employed future Philadelphia Gum owner Edward P. Feinemore who brought us the 1964-66 Philadelphia Football sets. Or the less obvious connections such as exiled Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna coming to New York with a rubbery substance known as Chicle; whose secretary, Thomas Adams (of Adams Chewing Gum) would in turn buy out Beeman’s Pepsin Gum, which had a salesman by the name of Enos Gordon Goudey, who started his own company which in turn had three employees start The National Chicle Company.  There are also plenty of historical connections that I’ll dive deep into along the way. While sports and non-sports cards are the main theme of these articles and subsequent podcasts, I never know where it might take me because often,  I too am learning as I go to give you the best quality content I can.

I started collecting vintage sports cards with a simple trip to the card store in the 4th Grade. In Mrs. Kelley’s attempt to teach us about Math and problem solving, I found myself concentrating on an odd group of cards while my classmates were figuring out the best value for their buck or wondering if they had enough money for that Bo Jackson card. Somehow I couldn’t find any Math going on. I looked around; I swear! This was where I first encountered 1909-11 T206’s, 1911 T205’s, 1951 Topps and a 1968 Topps Pete Rose which at $50; was something I thought would never be obtainable. Whatever the case may have been,  my problem wasn't just Mathematical, it was figuring out how to acquire a 1968 Topps Pete Rose which is well, attractive in a cocoon of blandness. To this day I just don’t understand how you can use burlap in any form of advertising or as a fashion accessory?

Along with that particular card were 1911 T205’s which could have easily been the Ark of the Covenant as far as I was concerned. I had no idea what they were or why they were called that, and I really wanted to know who it was that made these cards? First, virtually none of the players were known to me - Bobby Wallace? Dom DiMaggio?  Any relation to Joe? Why yes of course…Even some of the teams were foreign — Who were the Boston Rustlers? St. Louis Browns?  Instead of stepping into a Baseball card store, what I really did was step into a time machine. I went home really confused but very excited to find out more about this. While rummaging through the latest edition of Beckett Monthly late at night, I found no answers to the burning questions I had about these cards, but I knew what I wanted to do –build a collection that I could be proud of. But how? Beckett only made it worse by having the likes of Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and Willie Mays emblazoned on cards like 1956 and 1959 Topps which made the appeal ever more alluring. The only drawback I can remember thinking, was how in god’s name could I get my hands on any of these cardboard treasures and how could I afford those prices? Daunting! My awfully drab Pete Rose card was $50, so to an eleven year old kid, a purchase like that would’ve been the equivalent to building a rocket ship and going to Mars.

I devised a plan mow lawns, do chores and collect cans, enough so that I could go back to the store and make my cardboard dreams a reality. My first lessons in economics came to me a few weeks later. Not only was the Pete Rose card not there, but neither were the majority of the other cards. Gone like sand slipping through my fingers! Instead with the little money I had, I bought a small set of Donruss The Rookies for $15...still an outrageous sum. When I went back, the price had gone up to $25. This was either my first introduction to Supply and Demand, or to greatly inflated prices. That same set today can be had for under $10.

 Once more, I found another rude surprise when I tried to sell some of my cards…”beat it kid”, the shop owner said. Apparently there was this unwritten rule somewhere that I could buy and collect these cards, but not sell them for a small profit to get something I really wanted, and trading cards wasn't in the shop owners best financial interest either. I was perplexed...were trading cards not at the very heart of collecting in the first place? As kids we regularly traded for the cards we needed to complete our sets, much the way Jefferson Burdick, Lionel Carter and Buck Barker had.

 There really wasn't any understanding at the time that this was a business, and in many ways, it always was a business. As the years have gone by, collecting habits have changed; the financial aspect and corruption related to it many feel, has taken much of the fun out of the hobby. The purity of the hobby may have changed, or as Yogi Berra would say “The future isn't what it used to be”; but can we still enjoy the hobby knowing the great financial potential has taken over? I think so, but that depends on the collector. Have we gotten away from Jefferson Burdick’s original intent? Perhaps, but the hobby has changed greatly since his day and we’re changing along with the times. One major change from collecting as a kid and collecting as an adult, is that we need to understand that this hobby today is a 5 billion dollar a year industry – that while kids do enjoy it, it’s beginnings weren't meant for the sole purpose to entice children at all. It’s beginnings were rooted in Tobacco in Great Britain and America, not chewing gum and children were just a fraction of a potential sales profit.

To understand the hobby in its current form, we need to understand the economic, social and political situations which made these cards possible in the first place. Still, there are many enlightening aspects of collecting, one of them being what some believe is the very bedrock of the hobby...Non-Sport cards. Still, always in the back of my mind was that 1968 Topps Pete Rose card. I couldn't have known then the road my cardboard encounter would take me down. Understandably this feat would be years in the making and in no small part due to Baseball’s 1994 Player’s Strike which was the final nail in my modern Baseball Card collecting coffin. Along the way, I made some pretty awful rookie mistakes through trial and error.

     At the Heart of it is Education

What I learned from these mistakes was this: You need to make them, and then learn from them. Not only that, but I started going to card shows and conventions and met with a group of dealers and collectors who taught me the ropes of this Hobby. I learned everything from science to economics, the law of supply and demand, and most importantly to me – history, the one thing that I was really interested in – the history behind the cards I collected. Everything from the companies that printed them to the products which they were issued in...I just wanted to know. The shows, the conventions and the auctions I went to were like hands-on interactive classrooms. It was fantastic! Practically everything I wanted to know about cards was there – how to spot a fake or altered card, what was and was not a good deal, the art of making a deal, carrying a conversation and asking questions and knowing when to walk away were all brought about by this...almost. This was only half of my education as it turned out. There was no internet at the time so I went to this thing called “The Library”, which was scary at first because the Dewy Decimal System had a way of intimidating me. Once there however, I stumbled upon Roger Babson who wrote a book called Fundamentals of Prosperity: What They Are and Whence They Come (1920) and his Ten Commandments of Investing not long afterwards which became the cornerstone to my purchasing decisions. I make no bones about it, education the way it was taught in school for the most part was either too slow, infuriating or boring for my liking and I really needed other outlets – Sports Cards and non-sports cards gave me that outlet to learn what I really wanted to (along with a healthy dose of EC Comics).

That trip to the card store that day really opened my eyes and would give me focus later on, but it was more than that, and continues to be, a second chance at a quality education that in many ways, wasn’t achievable in school. My full potential wasn’t realized and worst of all, I knew it.  At some point I became very bitter and angry about my education and I probably spent too much time festering over it. One day, instead of blaming others, I decided to take it upon myself to read as much as I could and ask questions.

 I hold this belief as evidence of my own education that if you see something in someone that might spark their interest, whether it be a card, a good book or musical instrument, encourage it and let their curiosity grow. You never know where it might take them in life. Everyone learns differently and it can often be challenging, fun or disinteresting as Mathematics Professor Edward Frenkel, author of Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality (2013) explained in a 2014 numberphile interview  –

 “I think the problem is multi-dimensional. Imagine that you have to take an art class in which you were taught only how to paint a fence or wall, but were never shown the paintings of the great masters. Would that make you an art lover? Years later you would talk to your friends and say oh my gosh, I hated art at school, I was so bad at it. What you would really be saying is that I was bad at painting the fence and likewise, with Mathematics people often say oh I was so bad at Math. I hate Math, but what they’re really saying is that I was bad at painting the fence. So how do we make people realize that Mathematics is this incredible archipelago of knowledge? If you want your kids to understand and appreciate the beauty and power of Mathematics, you have to connect it to our daily lives”.

From this, the same can be said about any subject, but it often comes down to the way it’s taught. Through my love of card collecting, I found out that I really loved history, economics and the way business works and collecting sports cards gave me those opportunities to see these notions not just on paper but in practice.  

Best wishes and enjoy reading,

- Cael McClanahan