The Book on Boxing Cards. Plus: Our Changing Profession

Adam Warshaw started collecting boxing cards as a kid when, at a card show, he saw some cool 1948 Leaf cards of Barney Ross and Benny Leonard and learned from reading the backs that the great fighters were Jewish. There weren't many Jewish players on the baseball cards he'd collected. But, as he would learn when he showed the boxing cards to his father, there had been plenty of Jewish fighters. One was a distant old cousin of his named Ray Miller, a lightweight of the 1920s and 1930s who'd fought Ross.

Now Warshaw is a construction and real estate attorney in Burbank, Calif., and one of the country's leading authorities on boxing cards. The fourth edition of his guide, America's Great Boxing Cards, is out and available for $40 through his website, americasgreatboxingcards.com.

As a collector, Warshaw discovered lost treasures. There were as many boxing cards in the early years (the first part of the 20th century and earlier) as there were baseball cards, he says. He discovered boxing cards dating back to an 1862 John C. Heenan. But he found very few checklists for card sets or other resources. “I thought, “My God, here's a field that has no information out there,'” he says.

So he became the resource.

“I'm still working on some checklists," he says. "The 1948 Leaf is done. Ringside [a 1951 Topps set] is done. I just finished the La Salle Hats checklist [a small set from the 1930s depicting lightweights]." In 2008, Warshaw plans to expand his website to include checklists and images of many cards.

Boxing cards aren't produced much these days. The sport has lost kids as fans, and card collecting begins with kids, he says. Of course, the high values of some collectibles are fueled by kids who never really grew up. The rare 1948 Leaf Rocky Graziano, which was pulled from the market and never distributed, is worth as much as $20,000. As best as Warshaw can tell, four are confirmed to exist.

"It's the [Honus] Wagner card of boxing," he says. “One of my friends has one.”

Our changing profession: Two stories, both just out, examine the strange and evolving business of boxing journalism. Tom Hauser, at SecondsOut.com, explores the glories and agonies of the free food that promoters lay out for journalists at press conferences and fights. Steve Kim, at MaxBoxing.com, points out how newspaper coverage of boxing has declined. Nobody can dispute that sad trend, though I would suggest his report of the death of boxing coverage at the Philadelphia Inquirer is greatly exaggerated.