Baseball cards have long been a popular collectible item among sports fans across America. Originally included as an insert or promotional item in packages of chewing gum in the late 19th century, baseball cards grew to become a beloved pastime for children and adults alike to assemble complete sets showcasing their favorite players and teams. Over the decades, some of the earliest and most rare baseball cards have become extremely valuable, with mint condition cards from the 1910s and 1920s sometimes fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction.
While the collecting of baseball cards remains a popular hobby today in the digital age, the secondary market for vintage cards reached new heights in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fueled partly by the rising prices of real estate and other investments during this time period, many adults who collected cards as kids started taking the hobby more seriously and were willing to spend significant money tracking down rare cards to add to their collections. This surge in demand helped skyrocket the values of iconic cards like the 1909-1911 T206 Honus Wagner, widely considered the “Mona Lisa” of baseball cards due to its rarity and subject matter.
Around this same time, sports card and memorabilia shops began popping up in shopping malls and downtown areas to cater to this growing collector base. One such retailer was Mike’s Cards, which opened its doors in 1989 in the central New Jersey town of Brick Township, located just over the border from Staten Island, New York. Brick Township was the ideal location for such a store, as the surrounding communities were home to many sports fans and former card collectors looking to relive their childhood hobby. Mike’s Cards became a popular destination where people could browse inventory, discuss player stats and trade rumors, and occasionally find rare cards to add to their collections.
While running his thriving sports memorabilia business in Brick Township, owner Mike Ferraro also became an avid collector himself, amassing a huge holding of vintage baseball cards which became almost as renowned as some museum collections. Ferraro was particularly interested in high-grade examples from the earliest decades of the 20th century. Some highlights of his personal collection included a PSA-graded Mickey Mantle rookie card from 1952 in gem mint condition, a rare 1913 Baltimore News Babe Ruth card, and arguably his most prized possession – a T206 Honus Wagner card he purchased in the late 1980s for over $100,000, a small fortune at that time.
Ferraro’s collection became locally famous in its own right, and he occasionally showed pieces at card shows, museums, and his own store to help educate the public about the history of the hobby. In the early 1990s, a photographer named Robert Jones from nearby Neptune Township approached Ferraro about doing a photo shoot of some of the crown jewels from his collection. Ferraro agreed, and Jones spent a Sunday afternoon in Ferraro’s home meticulously photographing treasures like the Mantle, Ruth, and Wagner cards against a simple black backdrop to really make the vintage imagery pop.
The photos Jones took that day in Ferraro’s house went on to gain their own fame within the baseball card and sports memorabilia community. Black and white images of the historic cards were printed up and sold as high-quality prints by Jones, with a portion of proceeds benefiting local Little League programs. Many of the photos also found their way into magazines like Beckett, Sports Collectors Digest, and other hobby publications of the era. Today, the photos are still regarded by many collectors and experts as capturing the essence of some the most iconic baseball cards ever made. While the cards themselves have all been sold off over the years, the photos live on as a snapshot of a pivotal time for the hobby.
Ferraro’s store, Mike’s Cards, remained a popular fixture in Brick Township through the late 1990s before he made the difficult decision to close up shop as the sports memorabilia market began to cool off from its speculative highs of the early 90s. Many longtime customers were sad to see the store shuttered after over a decade of business. However, Ferraro’s impact on the area lives on, as does the photography of Robert Jones which helped spread awareness of this famous baseball card collection from New Jersey. Today, photos of Ferraro proudly displaying his prized cards in his Brick Township home in the early 90s continue to circulate among veteran collectors, serving as a reminder of the golden age when the hobby seemed to reach new heights on a regular basis.
While current card values have pulled back from the unsustainable levels of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the allure of vintage baseball memorabilia remains as strong as ever. New generations are always discovering the cards of childhood legends like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner for the first time. This ensures the collectibles will retain their significance both financially and culturally for decades to come. The photographs capturing Mike Ferraro’s famous collection from his store in Brick Township all those years ago are a testament to both the history and enduring appeal of the hobby. They provide a unique window into a special time when one local shop owner’s passion helped spread appreciation for these treasured pieces of American sports history.
