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!