Berk Ross was an American entrepreneur and sports memorabilia dealer who is best known for producing some of the earliest and most collectible baseball cards in the late 19th century. While he was not the very first person to produce baseball cards, Ross played a major role in popularizing the hobby of collecting these cards during the early years of professional baseball.
Ross was born in 1857 in New York City and grew up during a time when baseball was still in its infancy as an organized professional sport. In the 1870s and 1880s, baseball began to rapidly expand across the United States and interest in the sport among fans was growing tremendously. During this era there was very little mass media coverage of baseball and statistics about players were not widely accessible to most fans.
Seeing an opportunity, Ross came up with the idea of producing small printed cards featuring images of star baseball players along with basic stats and biographical information. He believed these cards could help generate more interest in the sport while also serving as a collectible novelty item for diehard baseball fans. In 1887, Ross founded his company – Berk Ross & Co. – in New York City and began producing his first series of baseball cards.
Ross’s cards were printed on thick card stock similar to postcards or trading cards of the time period. Each card featured a small black and white photograph of a baseball player on the front along with their name, team, and basic stats like batting average. On the back, short biographies were printed to give fans more background on their favorite players. Some of the earliest players featured in Ross’s sets included hall of famers like Cap Anson, Dan Brouthers, and Jim O’Rourke.
Distribution of Ross’s cards was primarily done through tobacco and candy stores, where they were included randomly as prizes or bonuses inside packs and boxes. This helped generate interest while also associating the cards with popular snack brands of the time to make them appealing collectible items. The inclusion of star players also made completing full sets an enticing challenge for many collectors.
Over the next few years, Ross produced several series featuring different players and teams as the rosters changed each season. Unfortunately, very few examples of his earliest 1887 and 1888 cards have survived to the present day, making them among the most valuable and sought after in the entire hobby. More complete runs exist of his 1889, 1890 and 1891 issues which are still highly prized by vintage baseball card collectors.
In addition to his card series focused on individual teams and players, Ross also produced some of the first true “trade cards” meant explicitly for swapping and collecting. His “World Series” sets from 1889 and 1890 depicted players from both the National League and American Association teams competing in that year’s championship series. These innovative cards helped further popularize the hobby of collecting while fueling interest in the World Series matchups.
While Ross’s company only produced cards for a few years in the late 1880s before he moved on to other ventures, his pioneering work was highly influential. He helped establish the template that future baseball card manufacturers would follow in terms of design, distribution method, and subject matter. Ross’s cards were among the first to link the hobby of collecting with the growing popularity of professional baseball. This combination would fuel a booming memorabilia industry in the decades to come.
In the 1890s and early 1900s, several other sports card companies emerged to carry on the tradition Ross helped start. Firms like American Tobacco Company, Goodwin & Company, and Mayo Cut Plug Tobacco produced colorful high-quality series that expanded the collecting market nationwide. By the time the modern era of Topps, Fleer, and other giants began in the 1950s, the baseball card hobby had been firmly established for over half a century thanks in large part to Berk Ross’s innovative ideas in the late 1800s.
While Ross moved on from the card business after only a few years of production, his pioneering work ensured his place as one of the founding fathers of the modern sports memorabilia industry. The beautifully designed cards his company produced in the late 1880s set the standard for what was to come and helped fuel the growth of baseball’s popularity by giving fans an exciting new way to connect with their favorite teams and players. For these reasons, any collection of vintage baseball cards is incomplete without examples from Berk Ross’s famous early series. They remain some of the most historically significant and valuable in the entire hobby.
