Thoughts on this 19th century oddball piece

[aquarius31]

Hi, I recently picked up this really neat piece from Hunt Auctions. I like unique items like this one as they are not only great displays but are one of a kind, homemade pieces whose origins are not obvious.

Here are some things you should know about this display. It is framed and measures ~23" x 27". As evident from the pictures, the condition is poor and many of the outside pictures are unrecognizable. It is on thin paper with a somewhat stiffer backing that is tearing in certain spots. The players have been cut out and affixed to the thin paper. The players within the inside ring measure ~4" x 1.75" while the players in the outside ring measure ~ 1.75" x 1.5". The writeup in Hunt indicated that the cut outs may have come from Old Judge cards (based on dimension would be N173's).

The biggest clue is that the 2 players at the bottom of the picture are wearing a 'Chicago Unions' jersey. A quick google search lead me to this blog where to my surprise there is a picture which is identical to the one in the display piece! The blog identified the players as Chris Fulmer and Abner Powell both of whom played in the short lived (1 year) Union Association in 1884. What's strange is that both Fulmer and Powell show up in a few different references as having played for the Washington Nationals in 1884 not the Chicago Unions. It appears that the Chicago Unions changed location and name in the same year to the Pittsburgh Stogies. Also, Fulmer and Powell were born in Pennsylvania and while this is a stretch, it is possible that all of these players had their roots in PA. Perhaps the picture starts with Fulmer and Powell and progresses clockwise to other PA players later in the 1880s???

I did try to see if any of the other players looked familiar by looking at several Old Judge cards....talk about looking for a needle in haystack! I'm not sure if there's any connection here but here are a few of the players that may be shown....I'm really just picking at straws here.

• Second OJ of Phenomenal Smith in this Bob Lemke blog looks like the same pose/player as the the top center of the display piece

• This OJ of Bill Hallman has a similar pose to the player shown just to the right of top center

I plan to head over to a frame shop this week to 1) see if they can carefully remove the backing to identify any more clues and 2) reback the display. If anyone has additional thoughts on player ids or in general, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

[Matthew H]

It looks like late 1800's Baltimore team. I see Joe Sommers OJ pose 429-3 far right second row in the cropped pictures you posted. The guy you thought might be Hallman is Oyster Burns (I think).

I'll also add that the center portrait looks like a fake John Clarkson

[Matthew H]

I'll also add that the team is probably 1889, since it includes Tom Quinn bottom middle row... I also see John Farrell, far right top row.

It's already a cool piece, but it would be really cool if it turned out to be all die cut n173 Baltimores!

[Bicem]

looks like McGraw 3rd from end.

[aquarius31]

Wow Matt, I am very impressed!! I was thinking that it would be difficult to even identify 1-2 players maximum so I really appreciate your help! You may be on to something with the Baltimore theme especially given that the each of the identified players appear to have played for the Orioles at some point. And Jeff, appreciate your thoughts here as well since McGraw started his career with the Orioles although the scan that I provided is not good.

I'll take a few updated pictures without glass once I bring to the frame shop and will share any new information here. Thank you!

[Matthew H]

No sweat George. I was interested in that piece when I saw it in Hunts and I'm glad you posted more detailed pics here.

You should pick up a copy of the OJ book if you like 19th century items and don't have one. There's over 2500 photos of these players from the era, and since most of those photos are Goodwin and Co, it wasn't hard to pick out most of the players. The bottom left is Matt Killroy, bottom right is William Whitaker. The player in the middle row far left is another pose of Chris Fulmer, next to him is Joseph Tucker.

It's definitely Baltimore.

[aquarius31]

Honestly, thank you very much Matt!!! I went back through your player ids and initially was confused because I only had 2 rows of pictures but then realized that your screen settings may be different. I started with Fulmer and Powell and then went clockwise. I think all the players have been identified now (the guy crouching is Sam Trott) with the exception of the guy in the middle and #2. The smaller external boxes are not something I'm going to look at right now since they are extremely faded with most images being unrecognizable.

At some point, I may have a photographer take several high resolution photos of the display and retouch it to show how it would have looked prior to all the wear and tear. Then I can have a double-sided frame to showcase it.

1) Chris Fulmer and Abner Powell
2) ???
3) John Farrell
4) Chris Fulmer
5) Joseph Tucker
6) Sam Trott
7) Phenomenal Smith
8) Oyster Burns
9) Joe Sommers
10) Matt Kilroy
11) Tom Quinn
12) William Whitaker

[maniac_73]

Cant identify anything just wanted to mention that its a very cool piece!

[aquarius31]

Thanks to Matt H., I've been able to identify all the players in the inner circle and from the id's I've been able to digitally recreate this particular piece. My photoshop skills are poor and I have no idea how to manually crop around the players (vs standard square crop). I plan to scale up the N172's to the size of the N173's, print out high resolution images of each of them and then cut them out and put them on a poster board which I will artificially age somehow. Should be a fun side project.

0) ??? (center image unknown origin)
1) Chris Fulmer and Abner Powell
2) Bert Cunningham (Old Judge)
3) John Farrell (Old Judge)
4) Chris Fulmer (Old Judge)
5) Joseph Tucker (Old Judge)
6) Sam Trott (Old Judge - unique pose from original)
7) Phenomenal Smith (Old Judge)
8) Oyster Burns (Old Judge)
9) Joe Sommers (Old Judge)
10) Matt Kilroy (Old Judge)
11) Tom Quinn (Old Judge)
12) Pat Whitaker (Old Judge)

Sadly, I have learned that the piece itself cannot be restored other than cleaning up the glue residue and touching up the center image. There is nothing that can be done for the outside images and many of them are unrecognizable. I have searched through the internet at length and have not been able to find the original card source for the outside square portraits or the center image. I don't believe that the outside portraits are N172's but if anyone recognizes something in the scans, please let me know! I assume that they are Baltimore players as well (based on 'B' on some jerseys) and suspect that at least one of them is the manager, Billy Barnie although it's not a perfect match to his N172 pose.