1880s Louisville Slugger Bat?
 

I copied this image from a thread on the card side about Leon's tintype. It shows Bobby Mathews holding a bat. Louisville KY can be seen on the "label".
I haven't seen this particular marking before. Is this an early Louisville Slugger label?

This is amazing. From what I could find out quickly the shop was originally located at 216 First Street in Louisville. That appears to match the labeling visible on the bat. Outstanding photo. Would love to have one of these bats pop up someday.

Gentlemen, thanks for your keen eyesight and excellent research and intuitions. It is a pleasure to study that image. I suppose the uni dates this to sometime between 1883 and 1887.

So, do we now have a new earliest Louisville Slugger marking?

That's really amazing! I'm working on an illustration of Pete Browning and Bud Hillerich for a book I'm writing on baseball in Kentucky and was wondering what the oldest branding on a bat was. The Louisville Slugger museum sent me pictures of a circa 1890-93. That one has the familiar oval look to it, but this photo has what must have been an even earlier stamp. Since Hillerich made all kinds of wood products, I wonder if it is the standard stamp the company put on all their products before they came up with a special one for bats?

According to the website ThreadsOfOurGame.com the uniform looks to be a one-year style from 1888:

https://www.threadsofourgame.com/188...-philadelphia/

Pete Browning had his first bat made by Hillerich in 1884 so this has to be the earliest branded Louisville Slugger bat I have seen so far.

Amazing the knowledge on the forum and the details and history that can be learned

Great job

Thank you Gary for heads up on this memorabilia forum thread, I don't visit very frequently.

When Saco River auctioned off a number of Goodwin negatives in 2015 I took great interest, booked a trip to study each and every one while also bidding on several. The Bobby Mathews negatives have remarkable clarity and I wrote about the collection in detail back in 2015 here:

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=200961

If you take a look at post #22 I go into some detail on the early Louisville Slugger bat. Enjoy !!

Absolutely....

That's great, Joe.

So in reading that old thread on Net54, I'm reminded of another thread on this forum that I initiated but somewhat forgot about. Some good early information on the bats, including eventual conclusion that as of Spring of 1888 there were Louisville bats with (by studying multiple images from same photo shoot) . . .



Memorabilia Forum thread: https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...hlight=slugger

(same image shared on baseball side wtih a little different discussion on post #41).

Louisville
 

Here ya go. Moved in 1901.

Louisville Bat
 

Here ya go. Moved in 1901.

sicollector1954 - Love that bat, it is early and it is beautiful !!

Louisville Bat
 

It is actually a salesman sample I believe or mini bat....I would like to call it it a ring bat perhaps because of the painted end but I am no expert. I have seen a full size one sell of these sell at auction a few years ago (SCP or Goldin) but never have seen another this size. I would think that it dates somewhere between 1897-1901 but maybe I am off a little for the early year??