The Burdick Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Burdick Collection is the 'finest collection of trade cards in the United States.'  Not only did Jefferson R. Burdick (1900-1963) collect trade cards (advertising cards) but he devised a way of categorising them. The American card catalog (East Stroudsburg, Penna., 1960) is the standard reference work on the subject. Especially notable is his collection of baseball cards, a small selection of which is on display in the American Wing (gallery 773).

There are 3,307 entries for Burdick's collection in the Metropolitan Museum catalogue, with 148 digital images. It extends to other areas of ephemera, such as greetings cards, prints and postcards. A Directory of the J. R. Burdick Collection; trade and souvenir cards and other paper Americana in the Metropolitan Museum of Art was published by the Museum in the 1960s.

Burdick also wrote Pioneer post cards, the story of mailing cards to 1898, with an illustrated checklist of publishers and titles, New York, c. 1957.

© 2000–2012 The Metropolitan Museum of Art