Although collecting vintage baseball cards isn't the booming hobby (and business) it once was, there are still a considerable number of individual cards that have held onto or even increased in value. This is evident by the fact that the most famous and valuable card of all - the 1909 tobacco card of Honus Wagner in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform, the same card famously bought by Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall for $451,000 in 1991 - was sold again to an anonymous buyer last September for a staggering $2,800,000.

Further evidence is found in a colorful new book, "Cardboard Gems, A Century of Baseball Cards & Their Stories, 1869-1969" by Khyber Oser, Mark Friedland and Ron Oser (Mastro Auctions), a lively, appealingly illustrated volume that is miles away from the standard comprehensive baseball card price guide crammed with statistics. This book, covering the first 100 years of baseball cards, does offer values for the higher-stratus rarities, but, as the subtitle suggests, it also provides their detailed back stories, and is aimed at a more general audience.

Baseball cards began to appear not long after the professionalization of the sport. Among the earliest were a series of advertising cards for the Peck & Snyder athletic equipment company, some featuring baseball's first pro team, the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. More famously, tobacco companies during that period were inserting photographic and beautifully lithographed cards into their packets of Old Judge and Gypsy Queen cigarettes, as well as offering them as mail-order premiums.

These highly desirable, late-19th century tobacco cards were followed by the equally sought-after examples made by the American Tobacco Trust from 1909 to 1911, the famous T205 Gold Border and T206 White Border sets. Collecting baseball cards soon became a national obsession, especially among young boys, with the entry of such firms as Goudey, Bowman and Topps into the fray.

The Honus Wagner card is in a league of its own, but the Friedland-Oser book displays some impressive runners-up. The extremely scarce 1914 pre-rookie minor league card for George Herman Ruth recently fetched more than $240,000 at auction; it shows a young Babe, just out of St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, then playing for the Baltimore Orioles of the International League.

Valued at $100,000 is the red-bordered 1910 T210 Old Mill card depicting "Shoeless" Joe Jackson before his involvement with the infamous Chicago White Sox, when he was still with the minor league New Orleans Pelicans, a teammate of 20-year-old Casey Stengel.

Following this, with a $75,000 value, is the rare 1900-1901 White Border card of "Slow" Joe Doyle, playing for the New York Highlanders (but misidentified as a Giant).

In the $20,000-$30,000 range is the even earlier 1886 #N167 Old Judge card of Mickey Welch. Old Judge was the breakthrough cigarette brand, beginning in 1886 with a 12-man, black-and-white set of the New York Giants, and Welch (misspelled Welsh on the card) is remembered as the sport's first pinch hitter. Also in this ballpark are the 1903 E107 Breisch-Williams card of Cy Young, the most successful pitcher of all time, the 1909-11 T206 White Border Ty Cobb card on a red background, distributed in a Ty Cobb brand tobacco tin, proclaiming the Georgia Peach the "King of the Smoking Tobacco World."

Among more modern cards, the oversized, brightly colored 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle card is highly sought after and valued at $54,000. A limited release Puerto Rican issue set called "Toleteros" ("Sluggers") contains the only known cardboard depiction of Negro League star Josh Gibson, estimated value, $50,000, the same price given for the 1933 Goudey Gum Company #106 card for Napoleon (Larry) Lajoe, which caused an uproar when the company neglected to include it in the original set.

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, including "Cool Names for Babies" and "The Baby Name Bible" (St. Martin's Press; www.babynamebible.com). She cannot answer letters personally.

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