Topps is one of the most iconic and historic brand names in the sports card industry. For generations of collectors around the world, the mere mention of Topps evokes fond memories and images of being a kid eagerly ripping open wax packs in hopes of finding favorite players or rare cards. Before Topps rose to dominance in the 1950s, there was another pioneering issuer that helped lay the foundation for the modern baseball card collecting hobby – The Michigan Bell Telephone Company, more commonly known as TMB.
Though little known today outside hardcore vintage card circles, TMB released collapsing telephone matchbooks with baseball cards inserted between 1909-1911, making them among the earliest modern issues of sports-related collectibles. Each pocket-sized matchbook contained ads or baseball facts on the outer cover and a single card featuring a player portrait and stats inside. Over the course of their brief run, TMB is believed to have printed around 2,000 different cards covering major leaguers from that era.
The origins of TMB’s baseball card production are somewhat murky, as limited documentation exists from over a century ago. It’s widely accepted they were part of a promotional campaign by The Michigan Bell Telephone Company (which later became part of the giant AT&T conglomerate) to distribute matchbooks as a form of advertising while also piggybacking on America’s pastime of baseball to reach new audiences. By incorporating cards into their matchbook designs, TMB helped introduce the novel concept that sports and entertainment figures could be collected and traded like other commodities.
While the precise print runs are unknown, the scarcity of surviving TMB specimens indicates they produced cards on a much smaller scale than the giants that followed such as Topps and Bowman in their heyday. Their distribution was also relatively localized to Michigan as well as some surrounding states like Ohio that Bell operated within at the turn of the 20th century. Even so, TMB cards attained significant historical importance by laying early foundations. Some key aspects that helped cement their place in the origins story of modern baseball cards include:
Being among the first companies to commercially produce and distribute cards featuring major leaguers for non-tobacco uses such as matchbooks rather than just as a promotional insertion.
Helping establish some standardization and formatting conventions still used today such as individual sized cards with player photos, stats, team logos on a colored background.
Including stars like Tyrus Cobb, Nap Lajoie, andMordecai “Three Finger” Brown well before they became superstars to increase mainstream appeal and recognition for fans and collectors.
Contributing to the transition of baseball cards evolving into a legitimate hobby and marketplace as people began seeking out and collecting specific cards to complete imagined sets decades before the modern concept of a “released set” began in the 1950s.
In assessing the player selection and production values of early TMB cards, several distinctive attributes are notable:
Teams represented span both the American and National Leagues from that time period but show a bias towards players on Michigan-based Detroit Tigers as well as other midwestern clubs.
Portraits exhibit varying degrees of focus, crops, and photo quality that was more crude by today’s mass production standards but still a marked improvement over tobacco-insert predecessors.
Statistics featured are often incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate compared to more modern references since comprehensive records were not as thoroughly kept at that time.
Hand-coloring, embossing, and primitive die-cuts were sometimes used for higher ends and special issues, but most are the basic early blueprint for modern cardboard.
Condition is invariably poor for survivors due to inherently fragile construction in pocket matchbooks and the corrosive strikers on the rear potentially damaging adjacent cards over decades.
Even very high grades are scarce, with the finest specimens oftenvariously stained, wrinkled, or with edge-wear that doesn’t detract significantly from historic appeal to aficionados.
Beyond their groundbreaking role as a seminal pre-World War I branded baseball card line, perhaps TMB’s most enduring curiosity comes from just how few have endured to present day. Only a small fraction of the estimated 2,000 different known issue cards are accounted for across all institutional and private collections globally. The dollar values for TMB singles in any grade capable of clear identification routinely command mid-five figures or more at major auctions. A nearly pristine 1909 proof card of Nap Lajoie recently brought a stunning $657,250 USD hammer price, among the costliest sports cards ever sold.
What happened to such an immense quantity disappearing almost entirely with few accessible to researchers or fans over a century on raises many questions. Theories range from natural deterioration of paper matchbooks no match for time, potential wartime scrap metal drives destroying large caches, and early collectors failing to adequately preserve fragile pieces of history now so coveted. Regardless of what ultimately reduced their numbers to a tiny fraction of the original print run, those TMB cards that do still exist take on an even more exalted status for their unmatched rarity and place in the origins story of modern sports memorabilia.
For serious vintage card collectors, finding elusive high-graded examples of early 20th century Michigan Bell Telegraph matchbooks at any price is the stuff of dreams. As one of the pioneering precursors that paved the way for Topps, Bowman, and beyond to make baseball cards a worldwide phenomenon, TMB cards rightfully maintain an almost mythical allure. They serve as a prime example illustrating just how far the fledgling hobby has come over the past century while still retaining powerful nostalgia evoking simpler times when imagination could transport fans to the ballpark just by glimpsing vintage greats frozen in cardboard history.
