For my money, it doesn't get much better-looking than the 1936 R312 National Chicle pastel cards, like this early example of an 'in action' card. Delicate but timeless...

For my money, it doesn't get much better-looking than the 1936 R312 National Chicle pastel cards, like old Mace Brown here. Delicate but timeless.,..

This beautiful card depicts a flame thrower who liked to throw a few back, and possessor of one of the best names in MLB history, Van Lingle Mungo...

“The Dodgers traveled around the league in ridiculed obscurity. But Mungo was famous and exciting, and they would bring him into a city advertised to pitch against the other club’s best. All over Brooklyn, people would stop ball writers. ‘How’s the arm?’ they would ask. They seldom mentioned Mungo’s name. There was only one arm in Brooklyn.” - sportswriter Jimmy Cannon

(“Van Lingle Mungo Is Set to Music,” New York Post, August 4, 1970)

When the world gets me down I turn to baseball cards. Gotta love cards from the 1930s...

The 1938-39 W711-1 Cincinnati Reds team issue sets may be the closest to perfect sets I've ever come across: Great team, beautiful design, relatively rare, relatively inexpensive, and one impossible-to-find white whale. Perfect...