A Little History of the Card Collecting Hobby

The hobby of collecting is of course an ancient one. Card collecting is a hobby that attracts a large number of people, with substantial numbers of collectors of all ages. One can start and build a collection for relatively little or one can spend a fortune and own some of the greatest cards ever made. There is a hobby for everyone.

The first kind of cards that were collected were trade cards. A trade card is about the size of a 3x5 inch index card and typically has a nice picture with an advertising slogan on the front side and full advertising text on the back side. They were popular between the 1880-1900 time period of the Victorian era. Local merchants and street walking advertisers would hand them out for free as a cheap and effective way to advertise products and services. A local store would sometimes stamp their name on the back. Some trade cards were beautiful, some funny, some had puzzles and some were risqué. Thousands of different trade cards were produced for the American public, from many types of manufacturers and merchants. These were mainly done in chromo lithographic instead of engraved, and because of the coloring, they became highly desirable. Because of their attractiveness many people, mostly ladies, started to collect them. One can think of these people as the first card collectors. So you see the first card collectors were non-sports collectors and they were women. Over the years the term trade card evolved into trading cards, the term we use today. Trade cards are still being collected today.

Most sports cards were originally promotional items given out by tobacco companies to promote their products. In the 1930's, the tobacco was replaced by gum and the cards became more of the focus, as companies such as Goudey and Play Ball produced cards. It wasn't until after the Second World War that cards began to be produced by companies on a regular basis, first with Bowman in 1948, then with Topps in 1951. Topps was the only sports card company from 1956 through 1980 after it acquired Bowman. In 1981, Fleer and Donruss entered the market, as did Upper Deck in 1989.

Picture cards have been issued in many different products such as cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, tea, gum, cereals, magazines and chocolate, covering most subjects including all sports, military, airplanes, cars, animals, dinosaurs, plants, movies, TV, Sci-Fi, nostalgia, and many more. The majority of the cards have full color pictures. Topps began making non-sports cards in 1948. Since 1970 several companies entered the non-sports part of the card collecting hobby. The main companies making non-sports cards are: Artbox Entertainment, Benchwarmer, Cards Inc, Comic Images, Dynamic Forces, Futera, Hero Factory, TimeTraders, Ikon Collectables, Inkworks, Monsterwax Trading Cards, NostalgiCards, Rittenhouse Archives Ltd., Stellar Collectibles, Strictly Ink Limited, Topps and Upper Deck. Another form of card collecting is collecting business cards and still another is collecting playing cards.

The main companies making autographed non-sports cards are: Benchwarmer, Inkworks, Rittenhouse Archives Ltd. and Topps. Most autographed non-sports cards are on the subjects of movies, TV, Sci-Fi, models or nostalgia.

by George V. Schubel