Share your favorites on Show & Tell

Goodwin & Co. Old Judge Tobacco Baseball Card of Henry Boyle. 1887

In Baseball > Baseball Cards > Show & Tell and Tobacciana > Tobacco Cards > Show & Tell.
f64imager's loves173 of 480Failing Optical Co. Business Card – What’s in a name?"The Great White Hope"
20
Love it
0
Like it

vcalvcal loves this.
BelltownBelltown loves this.
roddyqroddyq loves this.
scottvezscottvez loves this.
f64imagerf64imager loves this.
verbatimverbatim loves this.
whitman75whitman75 loves this.
farmladyfarmlady loves this.
mtg75mtg75 loves this.
Lady_PickerLady_Picker loves this.
jscott0363jscott0363 loves this.
shughsshughs loves this.
officialfuelofficialfuel loves this.
vetraio50vetraio50 loves this.
shareurpassionshareurpassion loves this.
CaperkidCaperkid loves this.
ManikinManikin loves this.
walksoftlywalksoftly loves this.
Alan2310Alan2310 loves this.
See 18 more
Add to collection

    Please create an account, or Log in here

    If you don't have an account, create one here.


    Create a Show & TellReport as inappropriate


    Posted 8 years ago

    rniederman
    (343 items)

    My baseball cards are few and mainly presents from one of my sons. This 1887 Goodwin & Co. Old Judge card is from our visit to a National Sports Card convention years back.

    Baseball is a sport with a rich and colorful history. Players immortalized in little pieces of vintage cardboard, issued during baseball’s earliest years, give wonderful insights into the sport’s lore and legacy. In my opinion, really early cards are much more interesting than their flashy contemporary counterparts. And keeping with my interest of pre-1900 photography, Goodwin’s Old Judge N172 set are issued as true photographic cards.

    Goodwin was the first company to create full sets of trading cards portraying baseball players. The concept of tobacco card advertising goes back to 1879 when cardboard inserts were added to cigarettes packs. Companies quickly realized these blank stiffeners could be small canvases for advertising and by 1888 nearly all companies were including them.

    As their popularity increased, tobacco card inserts included just about any topic imaginable; jokes, state capitals, birds, celebrities, bawdy humor ... you name it. Commensurate with the growing popularity of baseball, player stars joined the pantheon of printed material. The earliest 1886 Old Judge card images are wood-cuts from photographs.

    Photographic cards appeared sometime in the 1886 to 1887 timeframe. All Goodwin Old Judge photographic baseball cards are catalogued as N172. The production approach was interesting and predominantly photographic. It started with arranging 24 cropped cabinet photos into a 4 x 6 array covered by a matte. Player information was added to each image and the entire setup was re-photographed as a relatively large imperial format image. This single 24-image photograph was then mounted to a sheet of cardboard and cut apart.

    Goodwin's Old Judge baseball cards are not rare and often found for reasonable prices. As with any collectable, star players' cards will have the highest value. The card shown here is Henry “Handsome” Boyle who was a pitcher for Indianapolis (NL) at the time of this issue. Goodwin made four different poses of Boyle. While Boyle was a rather average pitcher by most measures, he and hundreds of other early players are remembered because someone (unknown to this day) proposed the idea of producing photographic cards to Goodwin & Co. And these sepia colored images of players in rigid poses give us a feel of the simpler pleasures of a sport in its infancy.

    logo
    Baseball Cards
    See all
    40903300 - Mickey Mantle - 1951 Bowman #253 Iconic 1st RC Rookie PSA 3 VG
    40903300 - Mickey Mantle - 1951 Bow...
    $10,000
    1948 Leaf #79 Jackie Robinson PSA 2
    1948 Leaf #79 Jackie Robinson PSA 2...
    $6,106
    1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle #253 PSA 1 ROOKIE RC New York Yankees GREAT COLOR!!!
    1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle #253 PSA ...
    $6,558
    44223039 - Willie Mays - 1952 Topps #261 RC Rookie PSA 2 Good GD MVP
    44223039 - Willie Mays - 1952 Topps...
    $2,550
    logo
    40903300 - Mickey Mantle - 1951 Bowman #253 Iconic 1st RC Rookie PSA 3 VG
    40903300 - Mickey Mantle - 1951 Bow...
    $10,000
    See all

    Comments

    1. rniederman rniederman, 8 years ago
      Thanks!
      Roycroftbooksfromme1
      David
      Alan2310
    2. rniederman rniederman, 8 years ago
      Thanks, Manikin!
    3. rniederman rniederman, 8 years ago
      Thanks!
      Scott
      vetraio50
      shareurpassion
      Caperkid
    4. rniederman rniederman, 8 years ago
      Thanks!
      Lady_Picker
      jscott0363
      shughs
      Michael
    5. rniederman rniederman, 8 years ago
      Thanks!
      verbatim
      whitman75
      farmlady
      mtg75
    6. roddyq roddyq, 7 years ago
      Thank you for sharing this post rniederman learning about any sport in it's early beginnings is facinating. I enjoy reading your well detailed camera posts they are very interesting!!
    7. rniederman rniederman, 7 years ago
      Thanks, roddyq!
    8. rniederman rniederman, 7 years ago
      Baseball is back! Pitchers and catchers reported to their respective camps today (Monday, Feb. 13th) and I'm ready to start watching the spring training games. Will the Cubs contend a second year in a row or will Cleveland step up again? It's early but should be interesting. And Henry Boyle (the pitcher on this Goodwin card) wouldn't have been a contributor but he is remembered.
    9. rniederman rniederman, 7 years ago
      Thanks, Ben!
    10. rniederman rniederman, 4 years ago
      Thanks, Nicefice!
    11. rniederman rniederman, 2 years ago
      Thanks, vcal!

    Want to post a comment?

    Create an account or login in order to post a comment.