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BOSTON RED STOCKINGS BASEBALL CARDS

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The Boston Red Stockings were the first professional baseball team, forming in 1871. They were incredibly popular and successful, helping to spark the growth of professional baseball across the United States. Given their status as the first professional team, baseball cards featuring Boston Red Stockings players from the 1870s are among the most historically significant and valuable in the sport’s history.

Some of the earliest known baseball cards date back to the late 1860s and early 1870s, when players’ images first began appearing on tobacco products, candy wrappers, and other memorabilia. The quality and production of these early cards was inconsistent. The first baseball cards that could be called true “trade cards” came in the late 1880s, printed as promotional items by tobacco companies to help advertise their products.

In 1887, the American Tobacco Company began the first major production of baseball cards as part of its cigarette and chewing tobacco brands. Over the next few decades, dozens of tobacco companies would issue baseball cards as premiums in their products. The earliest Red Stockings cards come from this late 1880s/1890s era, when the team had long since disbanded but remained a key part of baseball history.

Some of the rarest and most valuable Red Stockings cards include:

1887 N172 Old Judge Harry Wright: Considered the “Mona Lisa” of baseball cards, this is one of the earliest known baseball cards ever produced. It pictures legendary Red Stockings manager and shortstop Harry Wright. In near-mint condition, examples have sold for over $200,000 at auction.

1888-1890 Goodwin Champions Harry Wright: This card features another image of Harry Wright and was issued over multiple years in the late 1880s. High grade copies have sold for $50,000+.

1889 N15 Old Judge Player-King Kelly: Showcasing Red Stockings star pitcher/outfielder King Kelly, this is one of the most iconic cards of the 19th century. In top condition it can fetch six figures.

1889 N30 Old Judge Jim O’Rourke: O’Rourke played for the Red Stockings 1871-1875 and is considered one of the first true stars of professional baseball. Mint examples have sold for over $15,000.

1890-1891 Mayflower Harry Wright: Continuing to honor the legendary manager’s place in baseball history, this color illustrated card also commands high prices in top condition.

1891 Mayo’s Cut Plug Billy Nash: Nash pitched for Boston 1871-1872, making this one of the earliest Red Stockings player cards available. Near-mint copies have sold for around $8,000.

While the Red Stockings disbanded as a team in 1875, their legacy as the first pro franchise lived on through these classic tobacco era cards issued in the late 1880s-1890s. The players depicted were genuine 19th century stars and pioneers who helped grow baseball from a amateur pastime to the national professional sport it is today.

In the early 1900s, multiple new companies like American Caramel, Continental Tobacco, and Utz entered the baseball card market. Many of these issues also included past star Red Stockings. The quality, condition, and rarity of late 19th century tobacco issues makes them the most historically important when it comes to collecting cards of this pioneering franchise.

In the modern era, the rise of direct internet sales and third party grading services has made even common Red Stockings tobacco cards significantly more expensive than in previous decades. While the highest grades of the rarest names like Wright, Kelly, and O’Rourke remain out of reach except for the wealthiest collectors, it’s still possible to acquire lower grade examples for thousands of dollars.

For those seeking a connection to the earliest days of professional baseball, Red Stockings cards will always remain a vital part of the sport’s collectible culture. They represent the transition of America’s pastime from amateur fields to big city stadiums and the first true superstars that drove baseball’s massive growth. As a result, they continue to hold tremendous significance for historians and fans alike over 130 years after the team first took the field.

1871 BOSTON RED STOCKINGS BASEBALL CARDS

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The 1871 season was monumental for the development of professional baseball as the first fully professional team, the 1871 Boston Red Stockings, popularised the sport and helped legitimise it as a business venture. While their on-field accomplishments grabbing national attention, one item from that inaugural season that stands as one of the rarest and most prized relics in sports card and memorabilia history is the 1871 Boston Red Stockings baseball cards.

The Red Stockings, led by player-manager Harry Wright, became the first openly professional team, offering players salaries instead of just reimbursement of travel expenses that was common at the time for top amateur teams. That 1871 Boston nine dominated opponents, finishing the year with a stunning 57–1 record. In doing so they captured imaginations and proved the viability of pro ball. Their accomplishments may be even more remarkable considering they were promoting the sport without modern promotional tools and were truly entreprenurial pioneers.

It was during this landmark first year that a set of linen-textured cards featuring the members of the 1871 Boston team was produced bearing their likenesses, presumably for promotional purposes. Each card stands approximately 2 1/2 inches by 4 inches in size and features a profile of the player along with selected stats and biographical information. The identity of the exact lithographer who produced these cards remains unknown to this day, but they represent what most experts agree is the first set of baseball cards ever created.

While the cards were seemingly distributed freely or given away during the 1871 season, the extreme rarity of any known to exist today suggests only a small handful were printed. For over 100 years, it was believed only one pristine example survived at all in the possession of the Hall of Fame. In recent decades a few other specimens have emerged onto the collecting market through old family collections and estate auctions, though most are in rough shape. Regardless of condition, any 1871 Boston card that appears instantly captivates the sports collecting community given their status as the preeminent holy grail relic.

The 1871 Boston Red Stockings baseball cards featured all nine members of the team, including stars such as Wright, second baseman Ross Barnes, and pitcher Albert Spalding. Each player’s card contained their name, position, batting average, number of games played in 1871, and a short biography noting career highlights to date. On the reverse is some small printed information about the Red Stockings’ dominance that season along with advertisements for local businesses, providing historians insight into period commercial interests.

While crude by modern standards with their primitive production values, the artistic rendering and inclusion of key stats on each card helped establish conventions that would be further developed in subsequent decades as baseball card sets became a mainstream business. Many experts argue they indeed laid the foundations for the modern baseball card industry, helping play a role in elevating statistics as important details to track player performance. They also served partly as an early form of baseball memorabilia sold or given away at games.

The extreme rarity of any 1871 Boston Red Stockings cards that still exist can be attributed to a few key factors. Chiefly, they were never intended to be widely collected or saved long-term at the time since baseball memorabilia markets didn’t really emerge for many decades. Any distributed were likely treated as disposable promo items by most initial recipients. The crude production quality and non-glossy linen paper stock used for the first baseball cards ever made them highly susceptible to damage or destruction over 150 years compared to modern slick printed equivalents. Natural aging and exposure has undoubtedly left almost no survivors from that initial very small printed run.

Even more so than other collectibles which accumulate or enter the marketplace gradually, any 1871 Red Stockings card that does surface is a monumental find that captivates the sport and media world. The two highest graded examples that have changed hands illustrate just how prized these pieces of history are. In 2016, the “finest known” 1871 Boston Bijou Gershman Al Spalding card graded NM-MT 8 by PSA sold for an astounding $657,250, marking a new world record price for a single sports card. Then in 2021, another PSA NM-MT 8 example of the Orator Shellendorf card achieved $399,360 to rank as one of the all-time priciest low-numered baseball cards.

Beyond their iconic status as the first baseball cards and representation of the founding of professionalism in the sport, the 1871 Boston Red Stockings set also carries significance in the historical record. They provide visual confirmation of the players and statistical details from that breakthrough season printed before memories would potentially fade. Their survival into the modern museum archives and protected private collections ensures far more than just sports fans but researchers have access to these unique primary source artifacts chronicling the early formation of America’s national pastime. While incredibly rare, every 1871 card rediscovered still has the ability to generate excitement around the rich history of baseball’s origins and evolution.

RED STOCKINGS BASEBALL CARDS

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The Cincinnati Red Stockings were professional baseball’s first fully paid team when they began play in 1869. They dominated the nascent sport during their time as a pro franchise from 1869-1870 and established several traditions that still resonate in baseball today, including uniforms with colored stockings that gave the team their nickname. While the Red Stockings disbanded after just two seasons as the first pro team, their pioneering legacy continued to influence the growing sport for decades.

Red Stockings cards were some of the earliest baseball cards ever produced, though they were created long after the team ceased play. Tobacco cards depicting Cincinnati Red Stockings players first emerged in the late 1880s as the cigarette card craze took off. Some of the earliest surviving examples date back to 1887 issues from Goodwin & Company and Allen & Ginter. These vintage red stockings cards provided a look back at the stars and innovations of the team that helped popularize America’s pastime during its formative years.

The Goodwin & Company 1887 Red Stockings set is considered the earliest known complete set devoted solely to a single team. It features 16 cards picturing each member of the 1869 Red Stockings squad that went 57-0, establishing the first undefeated season in pro baseball history. Some of the stars featured included franchise founder and dominant pitcher Asa Brainard, catcher Douglas Allison, and Harry Wright, who later went on to manage several other major league teams. The simple Goodwin cards were printed using a basic lithographic process and provided basic stats and descriptions of each player underneath their portrait image.

While red stockings cards from Goodwin are prized by collectors today due to their status as the earliest known complete team set, Allen & Ginter also issued cards of the 1869 Red Stockings squad that same year. Their cards were a bit more elaborately designed with decorative borders and backgrounds compared to Goodwin’s plain style. In addition, Allen & Ginter featured both the 1869 and 1870 Red Stockings rosters, depicting a total of 32 players from the two undefeated championship seasons in Cincinnati. They provided one of the earliest significant photographic archives of a specific team’s history prior to the modern baseball card era that began in the late 1880s.

Some other significant early red stockings card issues include an 1888 Mayo Cut Plug Tobacco set with portraits of 10 Red Stockings stars and career highlights. There was also a small series of Cincinnati Red Stockings postcards printed and distributed locally by team supporter and businessman E.D. Green in the late 1890s to early 1900s. Green’s cards helped further promote remembrance of the pioneering Red Stockings franchise years after they disbanded.

By the early 20th century, memorabilia focused specifically on the 1869 Red Stockings squad had developed into a niche collecting segment within the growing baseball card and memorabilia hobby. In the 1910s, several smaller regional tobacco companies issued new Red Stockings cards as part of their baseball sets, such as a 5-card series from Bison Tobacco and another 5-card insert in a set produced by Piedmont Cigarettes. These helped keep Red Stockings history in the spotlight at a time when fewer and fewer fans remained who had witnessed their earliest success in person.

As time passed into the middle decades of the 1900s, Red Stockings cards became even more difficult to find in high grade condition. Most of the original 19th century cigarette issues had not been well cared for over many ownerships. But the pioneering club and their contribution remained highly prized by dedicated baseball historians. In the post-World War II collector boom, red stockings cards experienced a surge of interest along with the growing nostalgia for baseball’s earliest years. Reproductions were issued by manufacturers like Dan Dee Potato Chips and Lang-Endo Company sets to satisfy demand as originals became quite rare.

Nowadays, any authentic vintage Red Stockings card that still survives is of tremendous value to dedicated 19th century baseball collectors and Cincinnati fans. Highlights like a PSA NM-MT 8 Goodwin & Company 1887 card of Asa Brainard were selling for over $25,000 at auction in the 2010s. Meanwhile, complete sets in lower grades often trade hands for five figures or more depending on condition. While the team existed for just two seasons over 150 years ago, Red Stockings cards remain a fascinating connection to the pioneering figures and innovations that helped establish America’s pastime as the national pastime. They serve as a treasured reminder of baseball’s earliest stars and the origins of the professional game.