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History of Sports Memorabilia
The other day I was cataloguing three boxes of baseball cards
for a friend of mine and I began to think about how this entire
card collecting and sports memorabilia phenomenon began. If you
are a closet fan (as I am) of shows on television that travel
from city to city checking out and pricing antiques for the
general public, you'd be aware of the fact that often sports
memorabilia is brought to the shows for assessment. So this
tells me that a lot of people out there have sports memorabilia
that they consider to be antiques, so collecting of sports
memorabilia has been around for a long time.
WHEN DID SPORTS MEMORABILIA COLLECTING BEGIN?
If it's true that nothing says "USA" like baseball does, then
it's natural that sports memorabilia collecting in this country
began with a connection to the American pastime of baseball.
Tobacco Companies introduced baseball cards to Americans in the
late 1800's in an attempt to sell their products. When I was
younger I had always thought that the Bubble Gum Companies such
as Topps first introduced baseball cards, but bubble gum
baseball cards were really a product of the fifties and sixties.
These days Tobacco Companies are finding it next to impossible
to have their names advertised any where near sports and
sporting events, but in the late 1800's and early 1900's,
cigarette and cigar smoking was the norm. The Goodwin Company of
New York put out the first real numbered collection of baseball
cards in the 1870's. The American Tobacco Company produced the
most famous and therefore, today, the most valuable baseball
card, the Honus Wagner T206 in 1909. It has been estimated that
only around fifty of these cards exist today. Wagner was said to
be not happy having his name connected to tobacco sales and
production of his card was
therefore limited. In the early
1900's baseball card collecting began in earnest and spawned the
hobby and business of sports memorabilia collecting, as we know
it today.
Tobacco Companies continued to produce baseball cards through to
the 1920's and in the 1930's Bubble Gum Companies began putting
collection cards in their packages in an attempt to increase
sales of their product. These sales were halted during the
Second World War and in the 1950's production began again with
the first color photograph cards being offered. Baseball card
production continues to this day in a highly competitive
business although no longer are card sales inter-connected to
sales of gum.
IT'S NOT JUST A HOBBY
Of course, sports memorabilia collecting today has gone well
beyond just the hobby of the collecting of baseball cards and
today it is a full fledged industry on it's own accord.
Collectors today are not only sports buffs; they are also
interested in the investment aspect of their collections.
Probably the most famous of all baseball memorabilia collectors,
Barry Halper who recently passed away at the age of sixty-six at
one time owned over 80,000 baseball related items. He began his
lifetime of collecting at the age of eight and collected over
thirty thousand baseball cards along with many signed baseballs
and other assorted baseball memorabilia. Around twenty percent
of his collection is now displayed at the Baseball Hall of Fame
with the balance having been sold at auction for approximately
twenty-two million dollars after Halper found himself in failing
health
About the author:
Bob Rardin is the owner of Sports Player Network (SPN) that
specializes in Authentic Sports Memorabilia. For more tips and
information, visit his website at http://www.sportsplayer.net
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