Wanna trade a Joe Dimaggio rookie card for St. Christopher?

The other day I got to thinking about Catholic holy cards. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, holy cards are pictures of a religious nature on one side, usually a Catholic saint, with a devotional prayer on the other side. They're about the same size as a baseball card.

I was wondering who invented them and why. At first, I thought it was probably the creation of some priest who grew up in the Bronx and venerated St. Lou Gehrig and wanted a Catholic equivalent of a baseball card. I chuckled as I imagined a picture of St. Paul dressed in a Yankees uniform with a baseball bat resting on his shoulder. Instead of a prayer on the opposite side, imagine what it would've looked like with his religious statistics? You know, number of Christians he persecuted as Saul (before he became a free-agent and went over to the other team), number of Gentiles converted, etc.

My warped thinking was entirely out of context. Turns out, the earliest holy card known to exist is a woodcut of St. Christopher created in the year 1423. Going back to the baseball analogy, that would make the St. Christopher holy card, the Holy Grail of holy cards, the most coveted of all- kind of like owning a Honus Wagner or Ty Cobb baseball card. I wonder if the St. Christopher card came with a stale piece of chewing gum?

Catholic nuns were famous for handing out holy cards to kids as a reward for good behavior. I'm sure somewhere, there's a very pious man with a shoebox full of holy cards sitting in his attic. That lucky guy may not know it, but he could be sitting on a gold mine, especially if he has St. Christopher in his collection. Hey buddy, I'll trade you my Joe Dimaggio rookie card for your St. Christopher!