The Ludex Company was a small printing press started in 1887 in Rochester, New York by brother’s Ernest and Frederick Ludex. While the company did general purpose printing, they became most famous for producing early baseball cards during the late 1880s and early 1890s. These Ludex cards helped kick off the baseball card craze that still exists today.
In the mid-1880s, baseball was still developing into the national pastime. Players were still semi-pros and the major leagues had only recently formed. Tobacco companies like Allen & Ginter and Old Judge had started inserting baseball cards as premiums in their cigarette and tobacco packs starting in the late 1880s. These early tobacco cards helped popularize individual players and teams.
Ernest and Frederick Ludex were big baseball fans. In 1887, they got the idea to produce standalone series of baseball cards similar to what the tobacco companies were doing, but without requiring a tobacco product purchase. Their goal was to help continue to promote the sport and players. They started by producing larger 3.5×2.5 inch lithographed cards featuring individual players, teams, and managers.
Some of the earliest known Ludex baseball cards date to 1887 and featured stars like Tom Brown, Tim Keefe, and Dan Brouthers. The cards had illustrations of the players or action shots from games. On the reverse it listed basic stats and information about the player and team. It’s estimated only about 50-100 of these ultra rare 1887 Ludex cards still exist today in various states of preservation.
In 1888, the Ludex brothers refined their baseball card production. They moved to smaller 2.5×1.5 inch card size that could be more easily mass produced through lithography. This new format and production style is what most people associate with vintage Ludex cards today. Their 1888-1890 series featured many top stars of the era like Buck Ewing, Kid Nichols, and Hick Carpenter. Approximately 200-300 examples are estimated to still survive of most 1888-1890 Ludex players.
Distribution of the Ludex baseball cards in the late 1880s was mostly done through small neighborhood shops, tobacconists, and local baseball stadium sellers. They were very affordable at only 1-2 cents per card. This helped the Ludex brothers find an audience among young baseball fans. The cards proved very popular for collecting and trading. It’s believed they printed 30,000-50,000 cards annually over their 4-5 year run producing baseball cards.
In addition to individual player cards, the Ludex Company also produced team sets and sets devoted to specific leagues in their later 1888-1890 series. This included complete National League and American Association team sets. They even had subsets focusing just on star pitchers or position players. The detailed lithographed illustrations and stats on the cards helped ignite interest among new generations of baseball fans.
The boom in baseball card popularity also helped lead to the Ludex brothers’ downfall. By 1890, the much larger and more powerful American Tobacco Company had moved heavily into the baseball card field. They produced cards at unprecedented scale as premiums that were nearly impossible for smaller operations like Ludex to compete with. Faced with this pressure, Ludex ceased production of baseball cards after the 1890 season, sticking instead to regular commercial printing jobs.
For their few years producing cards in the late 1880s, the Ludex brothers made an outsized impact on the earliest years of baseball card collecting. They helped launch the original concept of standalone baseball cards available for direct sale that could be collected and traded. While their cards remain among the most obscure of early issues today due to low survival rates, Ludex was instrumental in kickstarting an industry. Their innovative concept of directly marketed team and player cards helped paved the way for the golden age of baseball cards that boomed in the late 19th century behind tobacco companies. In the over 130 intervening years, the tradition of baseball card collecting that Ludex helped introduce has grown into a multi-billion dollar global hobby. Their contributions ensure the Ludex name will always have an important place in the origins and history of American baseball cards.
The Ludex Company’s production of baseball cards from 1887-1890 was pivotal in introducing the original standalone concept of directly marketed collectible baseball cards. They helped ignite huge growth in baseball’s popularity through appealing lithographed illustrations and stats on early stars. While ultimately no match for the dominance of large tobacco firms, Ludex left an indelible mark by helping launch a tradition that persists as one of America’s greatest hobbies. Their early innovative efforts ensure the small Rochester printer will never be forgotten in the history of baseball cards.
