2. Jefferson Burdick's Earliest Articles Predate the ACC
Hobby pioneer Jefferson Burdick is best known for his work in the cataloging of collectible cards (both sports and non-sports) in the American Card Catalog (ACC). Many hobbyists today, however, are unaware of his earliest contributions to the hobby.
Pre-dating the publication of the first edition of his ACC in 1939, Burdick penned eight articles about card collecting that were published in Hobbies magazine. The covers for the issues containing his articles are displayed below.
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| December 1935 January 1936 March 1936 May 1937
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July 1937 August 1937 September 1937 June 1938
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Hobbies magazine was subtitled at the time as "The Magazine for Collectors." A browse through its pages reveal considerable insight about the more popular collectibles in the 1930s and the virtually non-exsistant role of card collecting among hobbyists of the period.
The magazine's major sections include numerous articles about stamps, coins, antiques, firearms, Indian relics and even rocks and minerals. Aside from Burdick's several articles which were generally relagated to a column or two near the back of the issue, there is no mention of card collecting in either the articles or the advertising messages.
Also very revealing is Burdick's knowledge and perspective of the fledgling card collecting hobby and the evolving methods that he used to identify some of the sets with which we are familiar today.
Burdick at first broadly classified cards either by style or size, with the Old Style being generally nineteenth century cards and the New Style representing mostly twentieth century tobacco issues. Cards were further classified into those of extra-large, large, medium and small sizes. In referring to New Style sets in the March, 1936 issue of Hobbies, Burdick wrote:
I am listing according to the size of the card although some sets seem to fall on a middle ground difficult to classify.
The first size are comprised of extra-large cards about 6 x 8 inches. These were obtained in exchange for a certain number of coupons or gift slips which came with the cigarettes. I have heard of the following sets:
Hamilton King girls (25) [later listed as set T7 in the American Card Catalog]
Turkish Trophies and Helmars
Kink Series (20)
Tales of Turkish Trophies
Actresses [later cataloged as set T1]
Turkish Trophies
College Series (25) (possibly 50) [later cataloged as set T6]
Murad
Baseball Players (100) [later cataloged as set T3 in the ACC]
Turkey Red, Fez, Old Mill
Prizefighters (26) [later cataloged as set T9; also included in set T3 in the ACC]
Turkey Red, Fez, Old Mill
Burdick went on to classify "large" cards ("approximately 2-1/2 by 3-1/4") into about 30 different sets that he numbered from Set A to Set DD. Of particular interest to vintage baseball card collectors today is Set X ("Baseball Folders, triple, Hassan") which later evolved into set T202 in the ACC, and Set Y ("Baseball Folders, double, Fatima") known to today's collectors as Set T200. Other "large" card sets are classified as Set Z ("Baseball Teams (photos), Fatima") known today as Set 200 and Set AA ("Champions, Honest Long Cut, 2-1/4 by 3-5/8") which he later cataloged as Set T227.
Of the 17 "Medium" size card sets ("approximately 2 by 2-5/8") listed by Burdick, only one features baseball players. It is Set Pm ("Baseball players, Ramly, TTT"), later cataloged as Set T204 in the ACC.
"Small" card sets ("approximately 1-1/2 by 3-3/4") include:
Set Ps ("Baseball players, (400) gold framed cards, Hassan, Sweet Caporal, Cycle, Polar Bear"),
now set T205
Set Qs ("Baseball Champions 1910, Fireside"), now set T208
Set Rs ("Baseball players (brown background) Napoleon, Broadleaf") now set T207
Burdick also included in his "small cards" list Set Ss ("Baseball players (white framed cards) Sweet Caporal, Cycle, Soverign, Polar Bear, Old Mill and several candy and gum sets of similar designs"). This of course is now best known as the set T206, along with other unnamed E-series cards.
Finally, Burdick placed Set Ts ("Domino baseball disks, Sweet Caporal") onto his "small cards" list. He later cataloged the disks in the American Card Catalog as set PX7.
Although Burdick's classifications evolved substantially between the time he penned the articles for Hobbies magazine and the final edition of the ACC, many of the fundamentals remained. For example the T3s are still listed in the "Extra Large Sizes" category in the ACC, although smaller sized cards were merged and re-grouped as "General Issues," "Sports Issues," "Novelty Issues," etc. in the catalog.
As an added service to Old Cardboard readers, we have prepared a compilation of the full text of all eight of Burdick's articles printed in Hobbies magazine. All eight articles are packaged into a single PDF document complete with the cover image for each issue. The PDF has been posted to the Reference Library section of the Old Cardboard website. It can also be accessed directly by selecting this link. We believe that it will be of considerable interest to all vintage card collectors.
Note: while Burdick's articles in Hobbies magazine were truly groundbreaking, they did not include the first known articles relating to the card collecting hobby. The first known article about collectible cards was published in the May 4, 1929 issue of The New Yorker magazine. A detailed description (including a full reproduction) of that article, originally written by Arthur H. Folwell and titled "A New York Childhood," is provided in Issue #32 (Spring 2015) of Old Cardboard magazine.
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