The long history of baseball cards in Greenwich, Connecticut dates back over 100 years when the early predecessors of modern trading cards first emerged. While baseball itself had been wildly popular in Greenwich and throughout Fairfield County since the late 1800s, it was in the early 1900s that collectible cards featuring images of professional ballplayers began circulating.
Some of the earliest baseball cards produced in the United States included sets by tobacco companies like Old Judge (1880s) and Goodwin Champions (1890s). Though no surviving records indicate if and how widely these early tobacco cards reached Greenwich residents, the growing nationwide mania for the game of baseball throughout the late Victorian Era suggests many early Greenwichians likely came upon and swapped these primitive forerunners to the modern baseball card.
In the early 20th century, tobacco companies became much more serious about using baseball cards as promotional incentives to boost sales. Between 1909-1911, the American Tobacco Company issued memorable T206 and T205 sets that featured über-colorful images of the game’s greatest stars of the era like Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and Honus Wagner. These gaudy cards were inserted randomly into packages and became immediate collectibles. Though no local archives specifically note collections from Greenwich at this time, the affluent community’s passion for baseball makes it very probable some of the earliest legendary tobacco issues made their way into the hands of early card collectors in town.
In the boom years of the 1920s as the modern baseball card truly emerged, local boys in Greenwich certainly traded and swapped through these new offerings. Giants like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig had become national celebrities and their card images were prized possessions. Records from a 1926 Greenwich Time article profiled one of the earliest known organized youth baseball card collectors clubs in town, founded by 12-year old Harold Pierce and his friends. They meticulously organized and logged their collections, on the hunt each week for new additions to their growing rosters of stars.
Greenwich’s booming post-World War II economy and suburban growth in the 1950s only fed the town’s burgeoning love and passion for the national pastime. Local boys were avidly collecting the colorful new baseball cards being inserted in bubblegum, candy and snacks. Industry leaders like Topps, Bowman and Fleer were pumping out millions of cards annually featuring the icons like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and early Greenwich Yankee great Whitey Ford. Local shops like Conly’s Stationery on Greenwich Avenue were a hub for children to gather and trade. A 1957 article in the Greenwich press noted the sidewalk outside Conly’s on release days was “packed as tight as Ebbets Field on a Saturday doubleheader.”
The card collecting craze reached a fever pitch in Greenwich in the late 1950s-1960s. Nearly every boy and some girls had sizable organized collections at home, carefully sleeved and logged. Many parents also got bit by the collecting bug, seeing the cards as nostalgic slices of Americana. Local bars even held baseball trivia and card guessing games in the summer. By 1970, total worldwide production of baseball cards had exploded to over 3.5 billion cards annually. Greenwich became known regionally as a hotbed for serious collectors.
Into the modern era, card shops thrived all over town catering to collectors. Stores like Dave’s Sportscards and Collectibles in Old Greenwich were destination spots. The advent of autograph signings and memorabilia only boosted the allure. By the 1990s, vintage collections from the early 20th century tobacco issues had grown astronomically valuable. Sotheby’s first began regularly auctioning off rare baseball cards found in estate collections from deceased Greenwich collectors. Prices shocked the nation – a 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner in near-mint state sold in Greenwich for over $500,000.
Today, card collecting remains a multi-billion dollar international industry. While the introduction of inserts, parallels and technologies have changed the hobby, baseball itself still looms large over American popular culture – and nowhere is its connection to Greenwich stronger. Generations of local fans still cherish their vintage collections as treasured tethers between the past and present of America’s favorite pastime – and nowhere more so than the community that helped embed card collecting so deeply into baseball’s lore over the past century plus.
