vintage newspapers, 19th century boxscores

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Posted By: Glenn

Does anyone here collect old newspapers for the baseball content? I've been thinking of buying a few, but I don't have any idea of their value. I know they're a lot cheaper than cards, but I'm not sure exactly how much "a lot" is.

What is the typical value of a complete newspaper including a boxscore (but no photos) from a local professional regular season game, pre-WWI, if the players don't include Cobb, Matty, Johnson, Young, LaJoie, Anson, Kelly, etc.?

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Posted By: Jerry

This in no way reflects the Current prices of Newspapers but a few years ago, I bought 3 Months of 1912 Newspapers for 75.00. They were in a large binder like they were from a Library inventory. They had pictures and box scores of 1912 Major league games. There was even an article about Cobb going into the stands to beat up a fan in Boston. As luck would have these newspapers also covered the sinking of the Titantic and when the Movie came out, i sold them for a substantial Profit. I know there is a company that specializes in the sell of old newspapers but don't know there name.
Good luck with your collecting Endevor

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Posted By: Glenn

Wow, that's quite a deal you got. Congrats on that and thanks for the input.

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Posted By: T206Collector

...at a yard sale I purchased a stack of old newspapers from 1903, hoping to find some baseball stories. Sure enough, I got the "box score" -- really short game description -- from the first World Series game ever played between Boston and Pittsburgh, pitched by Deacon Phillipe and Cy Young. The whole stack cost me maybe $10. I did some research at the time and a similar newspaper covering the game was on ebay, unsold with a BIN at about $25. I think they're great fun, but I don't think they're particularly valuable without photos of players, and even then, I'm not sure how much you'd get for them.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I see this stuff about the Titanic and newspapers, gotta tell you this:

Hub Perdue is in T206, with Nashville, a southern leaguer, and is in Cracker Jack. He was from Gallatin, TN, less than an hour from here. He was quite a fellow, was elected county clerk after years in the minors and a few in the ML.

Hub had 2 regrets with his ML career. First, he was traded from the 1914 Boston team that had the great turnaround and pennant run. He missed out on a World Championship.

Secondly, the best game of his major league career was on an opening day against Christy Mathewson and Mr. McGraw's Giants. Hub pitched a complete game, allowing only 3 hits, not a run, on a cold, rainy day. The next day his great game wasn't prominent in the newspapers, to Hub's dismay. The papers were covering the Titanic, instead. April 15, 1912 was Hub's day, too.

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Posted By: jason

Hi Glen,

I collect very early papers from 1854-59. Many have early box scores and some have articles on early club formation and early rule setting including convention details (important 1857 rule setting convention, etc). These can be found from $20 right up to $1000 dependent on date & content.

Hope this helps!

Jason

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Posted By: craig

i have been collecting newspapers, sports related, for about 10 years now. they are wonderful ways to read stories of teams/players that most will never experience. the language used is at times difficult to understand, they write much differently then as opposed to today, but for the price there is no comparison. the cost of full papers, or even just the sports sections, is ridiculously low. i usuall pick up papers at antique stores. they can care less about them, most just use the papers for packing material. i have rescued hundreds of complete papers form becoming packing material in antique stores for less that $1 each, these range from the 1950 and before. you can always find sellers on ebay with a multitude of newspaper "single pages" for sale at any given time. they always want $10+ for them, on ocassion you can find a full paper for $15-$25. this IMO is insane. i have never paid that much for a page or full paper, with the exception of one, 1887 pueblo chieftan from my b-day. thought is was cool for $10. i picked up the complete baseball seasons sport pages of the 1962 la times from opening day till the end of the world series for $15 in colorado last summer. hell i doubt if i could keep one of everydays sports pages for this season if i wanted to, but i can surly keep these. as stated earlier in this post, you can find bound volumes of complete newspapers every now and then. i also picked up one on ebay, it was $50 + $20 s+h. the papers were the des moines register from july-sept 1919. the seller was stephen goldman histyorical newspapers. talk about some really cool 1st hand reporting about the upcoming world series. these full papers are chock full of photos including many many sports ones. if i could give any advise about collecting sports related newspapers, it would be to have fun and just enjoy the reading while on a very inexpensive hunt for even more reading material. while your at it dont stop with reading the sports sections. my favorites are the classifieds. what a laugh i get when reading "will trade good horse and wagon for used ford truck." hope this helps out somewhat. just do me a favor. try to leave some of the midwest untapped during your hunting so to leave some for me.

sincerely
craig