4. Book Review: Mint Condition
While countless articles and books have been written about baseball cards and the long and colorful history of our hobby, none are more comprehensive of the entire hobby, or more broadly researched, as Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession. The book was written by Dave Jamieson and released earlier this year by Atlantic Monthly Press.
In a little under 300 pages, the twelve-chapter volume captures some 150 years of baseball card history that began shortly after the close of the American Civil War. Along the way, each major era of card set production, as well as the industries and personalities responsible for producing them, is described in engaging and informative narrative. While it is must reading for any serious vintage baseball card collector, it is also a compelling read for those with only a casual interest in baseball or the card collecting hobby.
Jamieson's narrative is organized into twelve chapters. A brief abstract of each is provided below.
-
Chapter 1 -- Details of the Duke family, Allen & Ginter, Goodwin Company and its "Old Judges" and others that played key roles in the development of tobacco card inserts of the late nineteenth century.
-
Chapter 2 -- The T206 set and the journeys of the "Gretsky" Wagner and its several owners.
-
Chapter 3 -- Background of "gum" cards and the sponsors that produced them. Includes much interesting historical detail about the personalities and businesses of Frank Fleer and Walter Diemer of the Fleer Corporation, Enos Goudey of the Goudey Gum Company as well as the roles of J. Warren Bowman, William Wrigley and others in producing the gum cards of the 1930s.
-
Chapter 4 -- A chapter devoted to the activities of Jefferson Burdick, Lionel Carter, Edward Wharton-Tiger and other hobby pioneers of the 1950s.
-
Chapter 5 -- Provides perspective about the marketing innovations and the rise to dominance of the Topps Gum Company in the 1950s and the company's "card wars" with the Bowman Gum Company.
-
Chapter 6 -- Detailed accounts of Topps' promoter Sy Berger and of Woody Gelman, Topps' chief card designer and creative force for more than two decades.
-
Chapter 7 -- The role of the Marvin Miller and the Major League Baseball Players Association on Topps use of exclusive player licensing for their card images. Discusses the commercialization of the card hobby and its transition from a schoolboy hobby to one that grabbed the attention of serious investors and older collectors.
-
Chapter 8 -- The activities of Upper Deck (and to a lesser extent Fleer, Donruss and others) in broadening and cashing in on the booming baseball card market.
-
Chapter 9 -- The role of greed (on the part of the league, the Players Association and baseball card producers) that ended the hobby boom of the early 1990s.
-
Chapter 10 -- A discussion of veteran collectors and the rise of vintage card and memorabilia auction houses of the past dozen of so years.
-
Chapter 11 -- The increased need for card grading, along with a discussion of the dark side of card scams, altered cards and ways to detect them.
-
Chapter 12 -- Wrap-up commentary about the current state of the hobby along with an important reminder that "After all, it's just a piece of cardboard."
A sixteen-page section of color plates bound into the middle of the book provides several dozen images of example cards as well as snapshots of a handful of hobby pioneers and veterans discussed in the narrative.
It is unfortunate that the volume does not include an index, which would significantly enhance its usefulness as a hobby reference. It does, however, contain 22 pages of Endnotes that cites source material for each chapter.
Overall, we consider Jamieson's research and his resulting narrative to be top notch, and we highly recommend Mint Condition to all readers of Old Cardboard magazine and this eNewsletter.
Editor's note: A brief collector's profile of Jamieson is planned for the Collector's Dugout section of Old Cardboard magazine (Issue #23, Summer 2010) to be distributed around the middle of July.
Dave Jamieson, Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2010). Retail Price: $25.
5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings)
Does Topping Set Include Germany Schaefer? As indicated in Item #3 above, a Checklist and Gallery have been added to the Old Cardboard website for the striking but obscure PC773-1 Topping Postcard set. While most indications are that the set contains only 20 cards, it remains a little uncertain whether it contains a card for Germany Schaefer (a 21st card). Schaefer has shown up on some checklists in the past but has not been verified by any today's collectors. Cards for all other players have been confirmed--as shown in the Gallery. Please let us know if you have any knowledge of a Topping Schaefer card. Otherwise, we will continue to consider the set complete at 20 cards (sans Schaefer) as shown in the set Checklist and Gallery.
Lyman and Brett Hardeman
Old Cardboard, LLC.
Old Cardboard, LLC. was established in December 2003, to help bring information on vintage baseball card collecting to the hobbyist. Produced by collectors for collectors, this comprehensive resource consists of three components: (1) Old Cardboard Magazine, (2) a companion website at www.oldcardboard.com and (3) this eNewsletter. The Old Cardboard website contains more than 500 pages of descriptive reference information for baseball card sets produced fifty years ago or longer. Each of these set summaries has a direct set-specific link to 
auctions and a similar link to 
's powerful search engine for further research. The website also includes a Show and Auction Calendar, an eBay Top 50 Vintage Sellers List, and much more. As a result, the Old Cardboard website makes a great "Alt-tab" companion for vintage card shoppers and researchers. Old Cardboard eNews provides current hobby news, upcoming shows and auctions, and updates to the website and the magazine. It is published around the middle of each month. For a FREE subscription to the eNewsletter, or for subscription information on Old Cardboard Magazine, please visit the website at www.oldcardboard.com. If you find this information resource helpful, please tell your friends. We need your support and your feedback. Thank you.
OC eNewsletter Sponsor
The extremely rare premiums profiled here were apparently unknown to Jefferson Burdick when he compiled the American Card Catalog. As such, they are not specifically listed in the ACC. They are, however, very closely related to the 1934-36 National Chicle 
