Photo Credit: Milo Stewart Jr., National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
From MBPR! on behalf of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum:
Cooperstown, New York – They’re rubber-banded together in boxes or filed in binders, stuffed under beds or tucked away in attics, stored on the top shelf of a closet or hanging out in your parents’ basement. They’re rectangular pieces of cardboard with a photo on one side and statistics on the other … and yes, you probably know those numbers by heart. They’re baseball cards, and if you didn’t collect them yourself, there’s a good chance that you have a sibling, parent, spouse or friend who did.
For generations, baseball cards have provided the perfect way for fans of the National Pastime to connect to their favorite teams and players. Now they’re the focus of the newest permanent exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, “Shoebox Treasures,” which celebrates the history, design and production of baseball cards … and the fans who love them.
The exhibit occupies a 700-square-foot space on the Museum’s third floor and comes in response to feedback from visitors who yearned for a dynamic way to learn the story of how a childhood hobby transformed into a multi-million-dollar industry. The interactive exhibit allows visitors to explore the history of trading cards, trace how the design of baseball cards has evolved over the years, take a deep dive into the passion behind collecting cards, and ultimately arrive at displays of some of the rarest and most cherished cards in history.
In the past and throughout many of the other displays in the Museum, the Hall of Fame has used baseball cards to show images of players or share impressive statistics. In this new exhibit, however, the cards finally get to tell their own story … which is often a quirky or unexpected one. For example, there’s an entire section devoted to “error cards” – those that featured reversed photos, misspelled names or even incorrectly identified players. (Or, in one case, used a photo of the team’s bat boy rather than a player!)
So far, visitors have especially enjoyed the section titled “The Cards Your Mother Threw Away,” which uses interactive vertical files to trace cards through time, from the earliest in the collection, which dates to 1878, through modern day. That portion of the exhibit features more than 2,000 cards, which represents a mere one percent of the cards in the Hall of Fame’s overall collection.
The journey through “Shoebox Treasures” concludes with the “Holy Grails,” 10 cards that are among the rarest and most sought-after in the industry’s nearly 140-year history. These cards, which are displayed in special cases that protect them from light and other elements, include Honus Wagner’s famed T206 card from 1909, Babe Ruth’s 1916 Red Sox rookie card from the Sporting News, a 1949 Leaf Jackie Robinson card, and a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card.
The color schemes, fonts and designs incorporated into the entire “Shoebox Treasures” exhibit were drawn from the cards themselves. Those visitors who pay close attention will realize that even the pink subway tiles at the exhibit’s entrance look like fresh sticks of bubble gum, and guests have already remarked that the room’s long, narrow shape reminds them of an attic. In short, this isn’t just a display; it’s an interactive interpretation that honors one of the most effective marketing campaigns ever conceived and celebrates fans’ passion for collecting.
For those who are so inspired, there are even interactive stations where visitors can pose for their own baseball card photo, choose a favorite team and position, and email themselves a collection of cards that shows what they would have looked like through generations of baseball cards – and thus become their own part of baseball’s history.
For more information about “Shoebox Treasures” or any of the one-of-a-kind experiences available only at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, please visit https://baseballhall.org/. To plan your trip to Cooperstown to see the exhibit yourself – and to explore packages that will allow you to truly discover “America’s Most Perfect Village” – check out https://www.cooperstowngetaway.org/.
Cooperstown, New York – They’re rubber-banded together in boxes or filed in binders, stuffed under beds or tucked away in attics, stored on the top shelf of a closet or hanging out in your parents’ basement. They’re rectangular pieces of cardboard with a photo on one side and statistics on the other … and yes, you probably know those numbers by heart. They’re baseball cards, and if you didn’t collect them yourself, there’s a good chance that you have a sibling, parent, spouse or friend who did.
For generations, baseball cards have provided the perfect way for fans of the National Pastime to connect to their favorite teams and players. Now they’re the focus of the newest permanent exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, “Shoebox Treasures,” which celebrates the history, design and production of baseball cards … and the fans who love them.
The exhibit occupies a 700-square-foot space on the Museum’s third floor and comes in response to feedback from visitors who yearned for a dynamic way to learn the story of how a childhood hobby transformed into a multi-million-dollar industry. The interactive exhibit allows visitors to explore the history of trading cards, trace how the design of baseball cards has evolved over the years, take a deep dive into the passion behind collecting cards, and ultimately arrive at displays of some of the rarest and most cherished cards in history.
In the past and throughout many of the other displays in the Museum, the Hall of Fame has used baseball cards to show images of players or share impressive statistics. In this new exhibit, however, the cards finally get to tell their own story … which is often a quirky or unexpected one. For example, there’s an entire section devoted to “error cards” – those that featured reversed photos, misspelled names or even incorrectly identified players. (Or, in one case, used a photo of the team’s bat boy rather than a player!)
So far, visitors have especially enjoyed the section titled “The Cards Your Mother Threw Away,” which uses interactive vertical files to trace cards through time, from the earliest in the collection, which dates to 1878, through modern day. That portion of the exhibit features more than 2,000 cards, which represents a mere one percent of the cards in the Hall of Fame’s overall collection.
The journey through “Shoebox Treasures” concludes with the “Holy Grails,” 10 cards that are among the rarest and most sought-after in the industry’s nearly 140-year history. These cards, which are displayed in special cases that protect them from light and other elements, include Honus Wagner’s famed T206 card from 1909, Babe Ruth’s 1916 Red Sox rookie card from the Sporting News, a 1949 Leaf Jackie Robinson card, and a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card.
The color schemes, fonts and designs incorporated into the entire “Shoebox Treasures” exhibit were drawn from the cards themselves. Those visitors who pay close attention will realize that even the pink subway tiles at the exhibit’s entrance look like fresh sticks of bubble gum, and guests have already remarked that the room’s long, narrow shape reminds them of an attic. In short, this isn’t just a display; it’s an interactive interpretation that honors one of the most effective marketing campaigns ever conceived and celebrates fans’ passion for collecting.
For those who are so inspired, there are even interactive stations where visitors can pose for their own baseball card photo, choose a favorite team and position, and email themselves a collection of cards that shows what they would have looked like through generations of baseball cards – and thus become their own part of baseball’s history.
For more information about “Shoebox Treasures” or any of the one-of-a-kind experiences available only at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, please visit https://baseballhall.org/. To plan your trip to Cooperstown to see the exhibit yourself – and to explore packages that will allow you to truly discover “America’s Most Perfect Village” – check out https://www.cooperstowngetaway.org/.
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