Sort of OT...Vintage Football photo ID help...Penn State?/Pennsylvania Normal School?

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Posted By: CLAUDE

Sorry it's not baseball Leon..just trying to get some guidance. Just picked up this photo today at a flea market and dont know anything about it. It measures 13 3/4" x 10 3/4". I dont know if it is football or rugby. Judging from the writing on the ball this photo is from 1907. I included a closer scan of the ball and also one of the equipment in the front. Can anyone help me with this? Real or copy?? Team?? Sport?? I had to scan in sections due to the size. The photo seems/feels real but I'm no expert.

Thanks in advance-
Claude

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Where are you located Claude? That could be a start.

Pennsylvania Normal School????

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Posted By: CLAUDE

I live in upstate NY..Rochester area so a PA school would fit!

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I should add that it looks real to me and it is a football photo.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Agree with Dan that it looks good and it's definitely football (great nose guards). You just have to figure out what PNS stands for-- might be a college team.

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Posted By: Ken McMillan

Penn state pre big Ten days?

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Posted By: CLAUDE

So, any other ideas? Any reference site to maybe try and match the letters with a school...don't really know if it's highschool or college though. Also due to the larger size of the photo it there much value attached to this kind of stuff...seems like a pretty early piece for football (also excuse my ignorance, I have no idea when football started).

-Claude

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Posted By: Jimmy

I had a few from the Pennsylvania Normal School - which is now Penn State I believe - looks like the same school and logo - but these type photos can be hard to tell, were they are from. I have at least 6 of these type photos that are hard to identify

Take Care

Jimmy

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Posted By: andy becker

hi cluade,
it looks real to me also.
obviously 1907 ball which would be either the year that they played or it could be the graduating class year. so if it is a freshman team, the picture could be from 1904.
i am guessing that it is a high school team, as i have never heard of a college with PNS (edited to add, until now (thanks jimmy))....and the players appear younger than college and definetly younger than a town/club team.
nice piece. regading value, unless you can identify a specific desirable player....i would guess $30.
regards,
andy

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

If it's a high school team then I agree with Andy that this is about a $30 photo, but if this turns out to be a photo of Penn State then it's probably in the several hundred dollar range to the right person.

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Posted By: CLAUDE

I went to Penn State's home page and it says the team becam the Nittany Lions in 1907 so if this was "pre-Penn State" it may have been the freshman team and therefore a 1904 photograph. Any thoughts?

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Posted By: Glyn Parson

Hi i am a graduate from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and I know that in the early 1900s Kutztown was known as the Pennsylvania Normal School. A Normal School was generally a place where people went to become teachers, I also learned that at Kutztown when i was going there to become a teacher, changed majors along the way.

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Posted By: gregor197

This is certainly not Penn State, which was known as Pennsylvania State College by the 1880s (see: http://www.psu.edu/ur/about/historyshort.html).

There seems to have been no one school that went by the name "Pennsylvania State Normal School."
There were numerous State Normal Schools in Pennsylvania, i.e. Millersville, Stroudsbourg, Slippery Rock, Bloomsburg, etc.
These schools were officially called something like Pennsylvania State Normal School for the Sixth District, in the case of Bloomsburg, but
they were known by their city, i.e. Bloomsburg State Normal or Slippery Rock State Normal.

Since the OP is from upstate New York, I think the most likely candidates for this photo are: Plattsburgh State Normal
or Potsdam State Normal (now both part of the SUNY system), both of which would have gone by the initials PSN in 1907.

-greg

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The larger size and presence of so much equipment and uniform styles will raise the value.

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Posted By: John S

It seems as if all questions have been answered. I just wanted to chime in and say that it is a really nice vintage team photo.

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Posted By: anthony

claude, i know rochester is big but any vintage card shops near greece? i will be in rochester the first week of august

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Posted By: Keith

That was a nice flea market find; nice photo. I am guessing no photographer marks or anyother identifying marks, right?
I don't think its a Kutztown photo - I am fairly certain Kutztown was called the Keystone State Normal School , and there was actually a photo on ebay a while back from the early 1890s that was from Kutztown and the ball was marked KSNS.
I did some google research but couldn't come up wtih anything. I do think that it is of some Normal School. Alot of schools that were called Normal Schools were later renamed, so maybe even try to find out if different Colleges starting with the letter P were ever normal schools - probably a long shot but should be a fun research project.
I have attached a photo I have of a Normal School. The school is Kansas Normal School (kansas state normal school) which later became the Emporia State University. In the photo they are holding a trophy ball from a game wtih the College of Emporia. I think the photo dates to the early 1900's - probably just a few years earlier than yours.

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Posted By: Glyn parson

I live 5 minutes from the kutztown campus Ill go look at some of the archives in the library on monday (family stuff all weekend) but I know it was definetly Pennsylvania Normal School as well as my wife ( also an alumni) says The Kutztown State Normal School, niether of us ever heard keystone state normal school, though that certainly doesnt mean it didnt ever have this name. If all normal (teacher) schools in PA were known as Pennsylvania State Normal Schools as an abovew post suggests then this may be a difficult item to ever identify.

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Posted By: Keith

Glyn, Obviously I'll defer to you as you graduated from there.
I got my info from quick google searches that I did back when the photo was on ebay. This is what wikipedia has to say about Kutztowns history, but obviously the school archives would be more definitive than a google search.

"First established in 1866, Kutztown University began as the Keystone Normal School based out of the presently-named Old Main Building and specializing in teacher education so that, in 1928, it became Kutztown State Teachers College. Eventually, the school expanded its programs outside of education to be christened Kutztown State College in 1960 and finally Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in 1983."

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Posted By: CLAUDE

Thanks for all the info. everyone. It's nice to post here and get answers!

Anthony- Finding vintage stuff in the Rochester area is tuff. I have a couple local shops that keep their eyes peeled for older stuff and they call me when anyone brings it in so I kind of have an "in" s far as that goes. But they dont usually stock vintage stuff and only get it if they know I'll take it off their hands. I do stop at some of the flea markets and have ok luck (that's where this photo came from).

Glyn- Thanks for the offer to research this for me. Please let me know if you find out anything more.

-Claude

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Posted By: Glyn Parson

you could easily be correct as I am going, as was my wife, on information told to us by the same professor so he could have been mistaken. I will however check this out on monday because I have definetly had my curiosity piqued.

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Posted By: CLAUDE

Glyn- Just wondering if you had a chance to research this.

Thanks-
Claude