How baseball card collectors categorize their collections

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Please welcome guest author Dan Wallach. Wallach is the Executive Director of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and Baseball Library, Greenville, SC. Become a member of the museum by visiting their website at www.shoelessjoejackson.org. Follow them on social media @shoelessmuseum on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Have you ever wondered why sometimes old baseball card sets are referred to with a seemingly arbitrary combination of letters and numbers? The most famous baseball card of all time, the Honus Wagner that keeps selling for higher and higher amounts, and whose value is now consistently in the “two commas” territory, is from a set called T206.

Some of the most aesthetically beautiful cards ever made were from an 1888 set featuring Cap Anson and King Kelly. That set is known as N162. The Shoeless Joe Jackson card commonly referred to as his rookie card depicts him on the 1909 Philadelphia Athletics, and comes from a set known as E90-1. What does all this mean? To a new collector, trying to decode these categorizations can be incredibly daunting.

We can thank a man named Jefferson Burdick for these categorizations, which are not at all arbitrary. Burdick was a world class collector, who collected not only baseball cards, but also postcards, cigar bands, paper dolls and myriad other ephemera from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Burdick started collecting cards as a child, and would ask his dad to smoke different brands of cigarettes so he could see all of the different kinds of cards the tobacco companies were putting out.

Burdick, himself, noted “The collecting of cards began soon after the end of the Civil War when manufacturers and tradesmen, as a means of advertising, had cards printed calling attention to their wares and services… During the 1880s card collecting received a real impetus when manufacturers began inserting a small souvenir picture card in each package of cigarettes.”

In the early 1930s, Burdick developed a system for classifying cards by their manufacturer and by the type of illustration which appeared on the card. Each set or series was given a letter to indicate how or when it was issued, followed by a number.

Starting in December of 1935, Hobbies Magazine allowed Burdick to publish several articles on cigarette cards. Those articles garnered some serious interest, and he saw the big need “for some tabulation and description of these many sets and for the establishment of prices and values.”

So Burdick started publishing a newsletter he called Card Collectors Bulletin.

Burdick published his full categorization system in 1939 as The United States Card Collectors Catalog. Only 500 catalogs were printed in 1939, which makes the catalog itself rarer than many of the cards listed inside. “It is intended to cover the entire card field as completely as possible. No listing of the old cards will be entirely complete and accurate.”

Burdick printed and released the original 1939 catalog in “loose leaf form so that, where desirable, sheets may be replaced or new sheets inserted. Such revision is planned for yearly.” Burdick initially followed through on that proposed timeline. He issued a 20-page supplement in July 1940, then smaller ones in October of 1941 and 1942.

Subsequent supplements stalled due to World War II. The next complete catalog wouldn’t be released until 1946, renamed The American Card Catalog. Burdick then began following that precedent, publishing full updates 7 years later in 1953, and again in 1960.

Burdick was a stickler for condition, unlike many collectors in the early days. “Condition must be considered in pricing cards. Many are found with creases, stains, tears, tack holes, and other defacings to such an extent that they are almost valueless. The prices in this catalog are for specimens in good to perfect condition.” However, Burdick would often intentionally undervalue cards in his catalogs to diminish the market for them.

He donated his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was accepted only under the condition that Burdick cataloged all 306,353 items himself. He started that process in 1948, finished January 10, 1963, and died eight weeks later on March 13. It was literally his life’s work. It became his legacy, helping generations of card collectors. As Burdick wrote, “Old cards are bits of history, and share in the love which all Americans hold for reminiscences of years gone by.”

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