TYPE CARD CHECKLIST

By David Hornish, dsh46@aol.com

This is a work in progress and still needs a lot of work, particularly in terms of the W cards. I've left Postcards on it for now. The list runs through 1980, although I left on Kellogg's through 1983 (why? dunno-I've always had it that way).

There are probably at least 100 sets I don't have listed, plus all sorts of back variations, etc. There's probably over 100 mistakes as well! To reiterate, the plan is to include all North, Central and South American issues, including Cuba. I have not included CDV's or Trade Cards from the 1860's and 1870's. Obviously, the majority of sets were issued in the US but Canadian cards to me are kissing cousins to the US cards and Central and South American sets are so poorly documented they seem worth including.

Feel free to e-mail me with updates, questions etc. and we'll posted updated version as they become available.

Download the checklist!

• Text version (207k)
• MS Excel version (465k)

As background info, I wanted to give you a list of American Card Catalog (ACC) designations. For those of you unfamiliar with this book, the American Card Catalog was first published in 1937 by Jefferson Burdick (yes, of the Burdick Collection of Baseball Cards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and greatly expanded over the next 23 years until the final edition came out in 1960. My copy is a reprint of the 1960 edition issued in 1988 by the Card Collector's Company, which was founded by Woody Gelman, the art director at Topps for many years, and later taken over by his son, Richard.

The ACC is the foundation of all card collecting and was, of course, the forerunner of all the checklists and price guides that came after. When you hear tobacco cards referred to as "T Cards" or Caramel Cards referred to as "E Cards", it's because of the system developed by Burdick in the ACC. While these designations are really not used anymore for new issues, they are indispensable for anyone who collects cards issued prior to the 1960's. Some attempts were made by a few of the old hobby veterans to continue the use of the ACC system. Buck Barker issued updates to the ACC in the 1960's (in one of the hobby publications I think) and the Sports Collector's Bible tried to carry on the tradition, along with a few other enterprising souls in the 70's, but with the demise of the long-running hobby publication The Trader Speaks in the late 70's and the rise of SCD, the hobby has gone with using the manufacturer's name as the reference point for each set issued instead of the ACC designation. This is easier but, to me at least, it means that collectors lose a vital link to the history of the hobby.

My checklist is arranged in ACC order, but with Topps shown first because that's just the way I set it up originally. I kept most of the ACC designations intact, with some exceptions, some not of my own volition: I created an "O" designation for oddball items and an "(SP)" designation for South American and Cuban cards. "N" cards, originally shown by Burdick as Central and South American cards are now shown as Nineteenth Century tobacco cards in accordance with prevailing hobby usage and nomenclature. There was actually no designation for Nineteenth Century cards in the ACC, just a number for each set. "WG" in the ACC stands for greeting cards, but hobby usage is now Game Cards. "ST" is shown a few times for stamps (like Topps issued) and "FC" for Canadian Food issues; they both came after the last ACC was issued. "PM", "PS", "PW", "PT" and "PPC" came later as well. The checklist has Postcard (PC) issues in it still, although I am thinking about taking them out as my research in this area is inadequate and there are other resources out there for Postcard issues, notably Dan Even who writes a sporadic column for SCD. Some "W" issues could really be called Postcards, but those will remain in the checklist. Items referred to by Burdick as inserts mean they were issued with another product (like bread), although his use of the term is inconsistent. I'm probably going to delete the TCMA minor league issues too. With the exception of Kellogg's cards (shown through 1983), I've used 1980 as the cutoff date. The Oddball listings are also incomplete, plus some items are not exactly cards in the true sense of the word, but I think worthy of the attention of this group. Not detailed are Cartes des Visite (CDV's) as these were essentially one-offs issued in the 1860's and 70's. Poorly detailed are cards from the W700's (see below).

OK, here goes (designations marked with an * are not included in my checklist, as not all designations cover baseball cards). Remember, these are all primarily supposed to be paper products (and some pins and other trinkets), primarily used as advertising and some of the designations are pretty strange.

ACC Designations

*(none)     (Was Nineteenth Century, now unused)
A          Tobacco Albums
B          Blankets and Rugs
*BC  Cloth Items
BF         Felt Novelties
C          Canada Tobacco
D          Bakery Inserts
*DC      Canada Bakery
E          Early Candy & Gum
*EN  Central & South America Gums
F          Food Inserts
*G         (A catch-all category, including banners, posters, albums, movie
stills, sheet music, calendars and cigar bands)
H          (Another catch-all, including Currier and Ives, advertising
products and design sets)
*HA Pre 1850 Advertising
*HB Mechanical Banks
*HC Clarks Threads
*HD Advertising Design Group
*HG Prang Advertising (Prang was a graphic artist)
*HK Clipper Ships
*HL        Liebigs US (Some kind of meat extract)
*HM M&M Cards (Metamorphic & Mechanical)
*HN Central and South America Advertising
*HP Advertising Product Groups
*HS Advertising Service Groups
*HX        Local Stock Advertising
*J         Soda Cards
*K         Coffee Cards
L          Leathers
M          Periodicals
N          Nineteenth Century (was Central & South American Tobacco-see
below)
*NW Cuba Wrappers
*NX        Misc. Foreign
P          Tobacco Pin Buttons
PC         Postcards
*PD  Bakery Buttons
PE         Early Candy Pins
PF         Foods Buttons
*PL        Playing Cards
PR         Recent Gum Pins
*PU  Misc. Pins
*PX        Novelty Metals (includes plastic coins also)
Q          Stereoscope Cards
R          Gum Cards (R1-R346 are 1948 and earlier)
S          Silks
*SC  Canada Silks
*SN  Central & South American Silks
T          20th Century US Tobacco
*T400    US issued abroad (relates to British Export Firm called British
American Tobacco Co.  These cards are not US issues.)
U          Unclassified Folders
*U301    Matchboxes
UM         Misc. Inserts
UN   Central & South American Misc.
UO         Gas & Oil Inserts
UT         Theatre Inserts (also ticket stubs)
*UW  Weighing Machine
V          Canada Candy
W          Album Cards (a catch-all again, although more defined than the G
or H designations.  W1-W252 are "early", W401-881 are 'recent", although the
700
             designation is basically for team issued Picture Packs)
WG   Game Cards (was Greeting Cards)
*Y         (yet another catch-all, this one includes rewards of merit, tokens
of affection, calling cards, bible cards and scrap pictures)
*Z         Paper Dolls

Added After Burdick

FC         Canadian Foods (I think this designation was created by Buck
Barker)
N          Nineteenth Century (actually added due to hobby usage)
O          Oddball
PA         Pins Advertising (again, I think Buck Barker created this one)
PB         Pins Bakery (Barker)
PM         Ballpark Issue Pins 1950's (Barker)
PPC Pencil Clips (Barker)
PS         Handheld Scorekeepers (Barker)
PT         Cuban Pins (Barker)
PW  Team Issued Pins/Recent Pins 1960's (Barker)
(SP)    South American and Cuban Cards
ST         Stamp Inserts (Barker)
WG  Game Cards (hobby usage)

That's just the stuff with designations. There are numerous categories of paper collectibles Burdick just discusses generally as they could not in any way be catalogued properly, like "Containers, general" and "Baggage Labels". Each set has a small description in the ACC, it's not an individual set checklist but prices are generally listed: T206 commons at ten cents each, fifty bucks for the Wagner.