The Oldest Cards in My Collection

Ever since I started blogging, I've shown quite a few cards that are very significant to me and my collection. This has included my favorite card, various top 5 card posts, an all-autograph team, and countless other cards that are very important parts of my collection. However, when I was thinking about what to post today, I realized I have yet to showcase the oldest card or cards in my collection, so that's what I'm going to do today. 

For this post, I've decided NOT to just show my single oldest card, since there's actually a tie for the #1 spot. And after that, I have 2 more cards from the same year that are the next oldest cards in my collection. Therefore, I simply grouped all 4 cards together for 1 blog post on the oldest cards in my baseball card collection.

After the tie for first place which I'll get to later, my next oldest cards are both from 1951, though they are from different sets. This 1951 Bowman card of Casey Stengel is one of my very few original Bowman cards, the other ones being from the classic 1955 Bowman set. My dad got this card for very cheap many, many years ago and even though I don't know much about the set, I've seen enough from the 2005 Bowman Heritage set, which replicates 1951 Bowman, to know that this is an exceptional card especially considering it was produced in the early 1950's.

The backs are also just like I remember them from the '05 Bowman Heritage set as well. The blurb on the back briefly describes Stengel's extensive playing and managerial career and even has the classic "No. 181 in the 1951 Series" at the very bottom along with the word "baseball" in bright red letters. I also find it very cool that this card shows Stengel's birthday which was back in the 1800's. Can't say I own many cards like that.

The other card from 1951 is from the original 1951 Topps Red Backs set. It was actually my sister who bought this card of Red's third baseman Grady Hatton a couple years ago at a sports card shop near Cape Cod. It's one of those cards that you really don't care who it is since it's an actual, real card from the very first Topps baseball card product. This card, like the Casey Stengel Bowman card, is in pretty good condition. I mean, it's hard to be in fantastic condition when the card is 67 years old.

And now, we get to the top 2 oldest cards, both of which, like I said, are from the same year. That year is 1912, nearly 40 years before the next 2 oldest cards in my collection.

The first of the 2 cards is also shown at the tops of the page, so I thought I'd show the back here. As you can probably tell from the Topps 205 frame around this mini card, this card was, in fact, pulled out of a pack of 2003 Topps 205 baseball, a set that's based off the original 205 tobacco cards. My dad pulled a card of Edgar Summers, who actually pitched 2 games in the 1908 World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Unfortunately for Summers, he was up against Three Finger Brown in both of those starts, so he ended up losing both games, despite having a solid game 1 and a strong game 4. 

With all that being said, I mentioned before that I have 2 cards from the 1912 tobacco card set. The first is of Edgar Summers, who pitched in the 1908 World Series. The next is of a player who actually played against Summers in the 1908 Fall Classic.

Yup, that's Joe Tinker, part of the legendary Tinker-Evers-Chance infield for the Cubs that won them 2 World Series titles in a row. The card is a bit beat up, but it's not bad considering that it's over a century old and a card of a Hall of Famer. The card is very simple but incredibly beautiful as well and very well-made. It's honestly pretty hard to believe that it's from 1912 because this card, as well as the Summers, look like incredibly well-designed baseball cards.