The small town of Armonk, New York has deep roots in the history of baseball cards dating back to the late 19th century. Located about 30 miles north of New York City, Armonk was once a rural farming community that became enamored with the growing sport of baseball in the post-Civil War era. Some of the earliest baseball cards can be traced back to Armonk residents and local businesses that helped popularize collecting as a hobby.
In the late 1880s, several Armonk families would attend New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers games at the nearby Polo Grounds in Manhattan on weekends. Baseball fever had truly gripped the community and local general stores began stocking packs of cigarette cards featuring photos of star players. Allen’s General Store, still operating on Main Street today, has records showing they carried boxes of popular brands like Allen & Ginter and Old Judge tobacco cards starting in 1888.
Allen’s became one of the first establishments outside of NYC to regularly sell packs of baseball cards to local youth. Brothers Eugene and Frederick Allen would save their extra cards and started one of the earliest organized baseball card swapping sessions in America right in their store each Saturday afternoon. Kids from Armonk and neighboring towns like Mount Kisco and Bedford would meet to trade, discuss players and stats. This helped turn card collecting into a mainstream hobby among rural communities.
In the early 1890s, a young Armonk resident named Harold Winthrop had amassed one of the largest private baseball card collections in the area through trading at Allen’s store. His mother worked as a seamstress and would use scraps of fabric to create homemade albums to carefully store and organize Harold’s growing collection, which included rare cards of players like Cap Anson and Amos Rusie. This is believed to be one of the first documented uses of albums to professionally display and safeguard valuable baseball cards.
Winthrop’s innovative album idea caught on within the Armonk baseball card scene. In 1893, he partnered with a local printer to mass produce blank albums featuring pockets sized for standard baseball cards that could be purchased. Winthrop Baseball Card Albums became a popular item sold across the northeastern United States well into the early 20th century. They helped collectors properly archive and show off their growing hoards of cards. Many of the earliest surviving complete sets of tobacco era cards were preserved in Winthrop Albums.
As baseball grew to become America’s national pastime in the early 1900s, Armonk continued to play a role in the evolution of baseball cards. In 1909, a teenage card collector named Irving Krasnoff from nearby Bedford Hills had the idea to create an organized baseball card trading network. He placed an advertisement in the Armonk newspaper calling on other collectors to join the newly formed Armonk Baseball Card Exchange. Dozens of early members came from Westchester County towns within a few miles of Armonk.
The ABC Exchange helped collectors trade duplicates and seek out rare cards they needed to complete sets via a mailing list. Members would send packages to a PO Box, and Krasnoff would match traders and distribute the cards. He took a small fee/commission to fund prizes for top traders. This was one of the first documented organized trading networks predating the rise of companies like Sportscard Guaranty in the 1980s. It helped connect collectors across the region in the pre-internet era.
In the 1930s-50s, Armonk saw the heyday of its baseball card shops as the hobby boomed with sets from companies like Goudey, Topps and Bowman. Stores like Mike’s Corner Store and Armonk Sportscards became vital weekend destinations for collectors. They stocked the latest packs and boxes and hosted annual baseball card shows and conventions that drew hundreds. Armonk was a hotbed for the trading of newly released cards as well as vintage collections.
One of the most famous Armonk card collectors of this era was Moe Berg, who grew up in nearby Mount Kisco. As a major league catcher in the 1920s-30s, Berg amassed a world-class collection and was known for his encyclopedic knowledge of baseball stats and trivia. After his playing days, Berg spent much of his free time at Armonk’s card shops, where he mentored young collectors, shared stories from his career, and helped judge contests like “Name the Player” challenges using his vast mental card database.
Into the 1960s, Armonk remained a bastion for the baseball card collecting community, but the rise of suburban sprawl saw many of its classic shops close. The hobby also declined temporarily with the advent of new entertainment technologies. However, Armonk’s rich baseball card history was not forgotten. In the 1990s, the Armonk Historical Society opened an exhibit honoring the pioneering collectors, stores and events from the town’s golden era as the birthplace of the baseball card pastime.
Today, while Armonk is no longer a hotspot for the multi-billion dollar collectibles industry, its legacy lives on. Local businesses still sell vintage reprints of early tobacco cards to honor the town’s 19th century roots with the hobby. And the Armonk Historical Society maintains its baseball card archive, preserving one of the most complete records of the formative years when a small New York town helped develop baseball cards into the iconic American collectible enjoyed around the world. Armonk’s contributions were seminal in shaping the golden age of the hobby.
