Pre war

LarkinCollector

Just a random question that has been on my mind for awhile:

Why is there a category for card age based on WWII? Decades seem to make a lot more sense than pre-1942 (pre war), 1942-1980 (post war/vintage), and 1981-newer (modern)

vintagefun

No real cards mfg'd between 1941 - 47. Though personally I've kinda always looked at it as Pre-Topps (up to 1950), Topps (51-80), and Modern (81+).....which I like cuz it is decade-y...and though we still had 5 years of Bowman and a couple Fleer in the 51-80 range, it was all about Topps...at least on baseball.

2cents

NVbaseball

So much of the country, sports especially, shut down to focus as much effort as possible to fighting the war. The 1940 and 41 cards are closer to the late 30s as far as style, production, marketing, et cetera. Once the war was over and card collecting started again the first ones printed in 48 and 49 are more similar to the early 50s than the pre-War ones

KbKards

1941 was the end of a long run for various companies issuing cards. Because of the war there was very little in the way of traditional cards issued from 1942 to 1947. Then it started back up again in 1948. It wouldn't make much sense to separate the 1940-1941 issues from the Goudey and Play Ball era issues, and it wouldn't make much sense to separate 1948-1949 from the newer Topps and Bowman era issues.

LarkinCollector

Thanks for the responses, it kind of makes sense now. It just seems like there should be some additional categorization. Pre WWI seem to be much more scarce than issues between WWI & WWII, though my focus in that era is generally golf cards so perhaps it's different for other sports.