General Forum

This is a great thread. For many years I never imagined I would be able to get into the tobacco era, and now I have a card almost 100 years older than I am! 

My oldest card is from the 1887 Allen & Ginter Arms of All Nations set. I purchased it at an antique store in Maumee, Ohio in October 2019 for $4. If I had realized how old it was, I probably would have gotten the others they had from the set, but I passed on them due to paper loss, one of my major things I dislike. Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to research them until I got home to NY, roughly 12 hours away. 

There's still some paper loss on this one, but not enough to be really intrusive. 

I actually have a run of 1887-1890 in my collection. which is still kind of crazy to me. I actually have a series on Cardboard History where I show one card from every year that's present in my collection. This was the first post that covers the 1800s, but please note that I got the card from 1888 after this post was published- it will be in an update post in the future. The Cardboard History History of Cardboard Collection introduction. 

I also have a page on Cardboard History where I'm copy and pasting the images from each post into an overall chart...I've only published up to the 1980s so it stops at 1989 for now. There's four posts left in the series, three of which have already been written, the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. There is also an update post for years that I've added after the project started, which will include the 1888 card I got in May, and, if I ever get enough to more, future update posts. Of course, there will be a 2020s post but I can't post that until 2030...

The project mostly features non-sports cards, which was a decision I explain in the introduction post. However, all 5 major sports do make an appearence, as do multi-sport sets and some of the less popular sports. 

Mine wold have to be 1887 N172 Bill Greenwood, two different poses. One is trimmed and one is faded.

Erik Greenwood

Mine's a t206 Rube Waddell. He's one of the craziest baseball players in history. He was known to literally run off the mound in the middle of innings to chase after a firetruck he heard passing. He might have been diagnosed with some sort of mental disability nowadays, and he did meet a rather tragic end after a long and heart-breaking struggle with alcohol.

I highly recommend checking out his story if you dont know it already. Hell of a pitcher in his day and a hell of a character too. I bought the card (with a thick crease through the middle of the card, but beyond that in decent shape) for $65 at a show. One of my better purchases, I must say.

Embarrassingly recent cardwise all things considered

https://www.tcdb.com/CollectionGallery.cfm/mem/Dodgydave/col/Collection1/sid/2013/1970-71-Topps

I do have some coins from pre-1900 despite not being a coin collector at all.

I believe the earliest is 1891 which is a little more impressive especially considering as a country New Zealand does not have the long history of most. I assume the coin I have must be Brittish as NZ did not have its own coins until 1933. Brittish coins only became legal tender in 1858 here. 

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCollection.cfm/sid/61749

1912 Brown Backgrounds T207 John J. McGraw

1895 J & P Coats Uniforms of the US Army (H606)

1933 Goudey #41 

1914 Cracker Jack Bill Rariden.  I knew his nephew.  I saw the name thumbing through a checklist for Cracker Jack and asked the nephew if he was related.  He said he was, so I tracked down the card and bought it for myself.

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/2/cid/433758/1914-Cracker-Jack-(E145)-137-William-Rariden

There's no picture of this card in TCDB, and I am not going to scan mine.  I hate scanning cards, especially old ones.  I don't like handling them and putting them on a scanner.  I have a very high tech photography setup (high resolution DSLR camera, macro lens, table clamp to assure straight photo) for taking photos of cards that results in vastly superior images compared to scanning, but alas can't use those images on TCDB.  I guarantee no one would ever know the difference between a card I photograph and one I scan.

My oldest would be in my avatar. 1888 Duke Cigarettes of famous people Russell Alexander Alger. 
 

the other would be 1888 Old Judge Joseph Mulvey 

after that would be 498 T206 cards from 1909-1911 1909 American Caramel Ty Cobb and 2 Philadelphia Caramels 

Interesting in that I struck up a conversation with a friend of mine at church asking if he was related to a former Houston city councilman, and he was; he then proceeded to speak of his grandfather, for whom my friend is named for, and thus I collect Gus Mancuso cards.

My oldest card is this one: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/0/cid/1945/1909-11-American-Tobacco-Company-T206-White-Border-NNO-Bill-Lattimore That is not my scan, as mine is in much worse condition (might grade as 2 of 10) and mine has the Piedmont back. I did the research to find out that it was printed in December of 1910.

My next oldest baseball card is questionable. It could be the following card, but I think my copy was printed later in the run of re-printings: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/72856/cid/5254865/1947-66-Exhibits-W461-NNO-Stan-Musial

That could make this card my 2nd oldest MLB card: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/38/cid/7123/1957-Topps-122-Ken-Boyer

My OVERALL 2nd oldest card is this non-sport one: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/75061/cid/5327495/1952-Topps-Wings-Friend-or-Foe-(R707-4)-118-Target-Plane

The oldest football card in my PC is a Namath from 1971 Topps. I keep that one b/c of the story behind it. The oldest football card I currently own is this one: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/79203/cid/5632103/1969-Topps---Four-in-One-Singles-NNO-Johnny-Unitas

I used to have a 68-69 Topps NBA card and a couple from 69-70 that I acquired in a small collection I purchased, but I traded all 3 cards several years ago.

I'd love to get farther back in time with my Cardinals MLB cards and my GB Packers cards. I currently have at least one guaranteed STL Cardinals card for every year from 1957 to 2019 (no 2020's yet). My Packers collection has some scattered 1970's and early-80's cards, but not many and nothing older.