Baseball has long been regarded as one of America\'s favorite pastimes. But it\'s not only sports fans that can enjoy the love of the game baseball has to offer. Collecting baseball sports memorabilia, specifically baseball cards joins the actual game as a favorite hobby of young boys, as well as older, across the country.

\"Baseball cards\" or \"Cabinet cards\" or \"Card de Viste\" as they were first called, date all the way back to the 1840\'s. The name \"Cabinet card\" was because they were meant to be stored in cabinets. These early cards displayed a picture on the front, and the team played for on the back, and are now extremely rare.

In the 1860\'s the idea of only displaying baseball information was expanded upon, and a company called Peck and Snyder decided they would be an excellent way to do some free advertising, by handing these \"trade cards\" out. \"Trade cards\" had a picture of a baseball team on the front and an advertisement on the back.

In the mid 1880\'s, for the first time baseball cards began to be mass produced. A tobacco company called Goodwin and Co. started putting a picture card into their packages of Old Judge tobacco, which lead to many tobacco companies doing the same thing. But in the 1890\'s many of the smaller tobacco companies combined to one big company, thus eliminating the need to use picture cards as a promotional tool in their products. Therefore, for a long period of time baseball cards were rarely produced.

In 1900, the government decided there shouldn\'t be such a monopoly in the Tobacco industry, so they sued, and won the right to force the big company to again splinter off into small companies. At this time, using tobacco products as a way to advertise again was very appealing. From 1909 - 1915, was considered the Golden Age of Baseball cards. During that period, some of the most beautiful, original and expensive cards were produced.

When American entered World War 1, tobacco companies decided to bow out of the Baseball card business, but candy and gum companies jumped on the bandwagon. Many gum companies produced cards with a lot of the favorite baseball players of the time, including Babe Ruth, and Joe DiMaggio. But when World War 2 began, paper became scarce, so from 1941 - 1947, very few were made and those that were had a very poor quality.

In 1948, gum companies picked up where they had left off before the war, and since then, Baseball cards have constantly been in production. Which has lead to one of the great hobbies for young boys, and even adult men for generations, Baseball card collecting.