Are reprints from original Spalding Guide photos available somewhere?

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Posted By: Paul C.

I'd like to obtain good quality prints of several team photos from the Spalding and Reach Guides. Is there a company, a person, or a web site from which these photos can be ordered? What became of the hundreds of original photos used in these baseball guides? Any advice is appreciated.

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Posted By: Mark

I only wish it were so. In some cases vintage photos that were used in the Guides do come up. I have some middle range to excellent scans of some.

You can find some Boston team images at the Boston Public Library flickr site - downloaded resolution is medium - the quality is much better than you find in the Guides.

The 1911 Spalding Guide head shot composites are Paul Thompson photos. The Library of Congress has at least some of these, and a group of about 30 or so are available in hi-res online.

If you list the photos you are interested in I will see if I have any of them.

For example, this Pit NL photo was used in the 1897 Spalding Guide:

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I was just having this discussion with Clint earlier today...the Library of Congress's website for the Spalding Guides has not been updated in years and is missing a bunch of years. I wonder what did happen to all the photos that got sent in to be included in the Spalding and Reach guides?

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Posted By: Mark Fimoff

Maybe I am mis-interpreting Dan's comment to some degree, but the LoC project involves digitization of actual Spalding Guides, not the photos themselves. So all images are as they appear in the Guides. As far as I know, LoC does not have the actual original photos that were used in the Guides (except for a relative few).

HoF has some also, probably more than LoC. I have purchased photo scans from them for articles I have published. That involves not only the cost of the rights fee, but also can involve costs for the search. If you want a scan of specific photo for personal use - I don't know how that works. The contact person is Pat Kelly.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Mark, the photo you picture was used to make some Cameo Pepsin pins as well, it's tougher to tell on the Killen (as the photo is light), but these are both straight from your photo...

-Rhett

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Posted By: Mark Fimoff

Hey Rhett - you are right - the pins do come from that shot.

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Posted By: Paul C.

"If you list the photos you are interested in I will see if I have any of them."

I'm looking for Columbus team photos of 1909-1912 and St. Paul team photos of 1913-1914.
I have the Spalding Guides in which those teams are pictured.
If anyone has or knows where originals might be found please let me know.
With the hundreds if not thousands of photos in the Guides, it seems odd that originals are not commonly seen and that there is no central database of them.

Thanks.

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Posted By: Mark Fimoff

Sorry Paul - I don't have those.

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Posted By: Paul C.

Thanks for checking Mark.

The mystery of the missing Spalding Guide photos remains.
Maybe the original photos are undiscovered collecting dust somewhere, or maybe they were discarded at some point in the company's history.
It would be an amazing find if they turned up somewhere.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Mark Rucker of Transcendental Graphics has an enormous archive of baseball images. You can email him at tgraphic@shaw.ca and see what he has.

As far as the original photos, I would guess that a good number of them have found a new home in private collections.

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Posted By: Clint

Mark, who has the rights to the photos at the HOF?

I would also say that just because you have one of the original images used in the guides doesn't necessarily mean it's from Spalding. Surely copies were made for players, coaches, and owners. If you multiply each image by a modest 3 copies that would make for a heckuva lot of photos. You would think more of these images would turn up but I guess it shows how few have survived. I have one that I know of but as you can see it's in a little different configuration than the guide.

Does anyone have a 1908 guide? If you do, would you post or email me the photo of the Hutchinson team of the Western Association? Thanks.

Clint

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Posted By: Mark

Clint --

The question of who owns the reproduction rights to an image is very complicated and best anwered by a copyright attorney who practices in that area.

Images that were published before a specific date (I think the date now is around 1924) are copyright free, so that would include the Spalding and Reach Guide images we have been talking about. (unpublished images don't have that statute of limitations).

However, HoF is not going to scan their images for you unless you pay them, and sign a contract if you want to publish it. Obviously, some of their old images had been published, others not. Also, just becuase HoF (or any other imnage holder) grants you reproduction rights doesn't necessarily mean that they actually hold the rights to the image!

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Posted By: Clint

Thanks Mark, that's what I was thinking. Just wanted to make sure though.

Clint