Sport trading cards are a huge market nowadays. There’s a big community of people who love trading and collecting cards.
The industry has been seeing a resurgence because of the pandemic, but a lot of people don’t know the history. The following will illuminate some of the highlights to keep in mind the next time you need a conversation starter.
The Origins of the Trading Card
There’s a debate about the origins of the sports card. Some say it dates back to the cabinet cards of mid-19th century. A cabinet card was a portrait of the team.
While they’re much different from today’s cards, they were still relatively small. They were time sakes that teams would treasure. Sports team would also use these cards for other business matters, such as advertising.
Some people don’t consider the cabinet card a real sports card since it wasn’t produced for collection purposes, but that’s up to you to decide.
A more official sports card came in the 1860s, thanks to the Peck and Snyder sporting goods company. The store created the sports card as a marketing gimmick. The cards featured a photo of a team with a cartoon image. It’s crazy to see how important a small business can play in not only the trade card industry but many others businesses.
The Cigarette Era
The cigarette and sports card began in the late 1800s. Back in those days, the cigarette package was pretty flimsy. Cigarettes were often crushed and customers did not like that.
The good thing is cigarette companies found a way around that. They saw that baseball was becoming popular amongst Americans, so they started to print cardboard baseball cards, and they placed them in cigarette packages.
While they did contain promotional material for the tobacco companies, they were mainly placed in these packages to protect cigarettes from constantly getting crushed. The cards worked like a charm. The first official baseball card that featured only one player was created in 1886 by Goodwin Tobacco. The baseball cards that his tobacco company printed feature players from the New York Giants.
The funny thing about this was that the baseball cards in these packs were for grown ups, yet most of them didn’t care about them. Most grown ups would just smoke the cigarettes and throw away the baseball cards along with the packs.
Another group of individuals saw value in these cards. Many kids started going through the trash or asked their parents to give them the cards before they threw away the packs. Kids love collecting things and trading them. On top of that, these cigarette baseball cards were easy to get since they came with their parents’ purchase.
Still, it would take decades before sports cards were available to purchase.
The Lithograph Card
Allen and Ginter created the lithographic card. This happened around the same time as the baseball cards just mentioned. These were still tobacco-era sports cards, but they’re some of the most beautifully crafted baseball cards out there.
For the most part, these sound like regular baseball cards, but if you see them, you’ll see why they’re so special. The truth is these cards and the artwork on them was handmade. The colors used were brilliant, which is part of what makes them so captivating. The artists behind each baseball card were exceptional.
If you see them, you’ll think you’re seeing mini paintings because they’re brimming with real talent. Collectors sometimes purchase them because of how beautiful they look. Sports cards are not made quite the same way because the handmade quality simply doesn’t exist in this industry any longer.
Branching Out of the Cigarette Pack
In the early 1900s, new types of cards started to come out, and you were able to find them in many products. These weren’t geared at people who smoked. These cards were issued in candy, gum, bakery goods, and even in magazines. Companies started to see that these cards are great marketing tools.
WW1 made it hard for tobacco companies to continue selling at the pace they were selling because they lacked materials, but candy, bakery, and gum companies were fine and continued to issue sports cards.
The next change in the sports card industry came in the 1930s after the Great Depression. People just weren’t interested in baseball or any sport for that matter. The country went through economic hell, and sports just wasn’t on their minds. Owners saw this problem coming, so they started to double their efforts to regain their attention by offering giveaways, nighttime baseball, and they even introduced the All-Star Game.
Interest in the game was reinvigorated, and Goudey Gum capitalized on that in 1933. The company started to sell packs of baseball cards with a piece of gum. This company went after the youth, and they were quite successful.
The Digital Trading Card
The digital revolution transformed every industry, and it’s done the same with this industry. The card collecting industry introduced apps where you can purchase digital cards. For the most part, collectors hated this concept. They didn’t understand why something digital would hold any value.
Still, the apps launched, and some people were receptive. They didn’t have to carry large binders full of cards. The cards would always be in mint condition, and they could instantly trade with many other collectors. On top of all that, these apps gamified the collections. Each person could use their collection to play fantasy games, which are popular in the digital world. Topps introduced the most successful app in 2012, and it’s been evolving ever since.
There’s no telling where this industry is heading, but it’s fun to see where it’s been and how much more potential it has.
