Ok, someone here please convince me that I'm wrong.....
Ever since I started collecting Federal League items, I've been attracted to the "St. Louis Pup" - a variant of the "Griswold Pup" cast iron dog series marketed as a souvenir for the St. Louis Terriers. They are cute, and there actually aren't that many souvenirs from the Federal League team, and I envisioned picking up some inexpensively from sellers who didn't know their history. I figured they'd be hidden in the mix of other advertising dogs, either labeled with the foundry that created them, or the advertising location/event where they were given out (such as dogs marked Hines, Griswold Pup, Alco, Bucki Carbons Ribbons, Blue Pup, St. Mark's, Paul's Pup, et.c)
HOWEVER.....once I started researching them, I began to wonder if they were actually even related to the Federal League baseball team. I first found this article online about them:
https://www.antiquetrader.com/antiqu...vertising-pups
And it talks about Griswold having a large production run of these advertising pups in 1937, and then another in 1951. So my main initial question was whether or not these were actually in production far earlier, during the 1914-1915 period of the Federal League.
I went to a Griswold cast iron forum to ask the experts. They told me that the "Fido Pup" design was patented in 1914, based on a comic character, and Hubley made Fido into a paperweight, bank, doorstop, and bookend. These original genuine Fido banks have a "US PAT 1914" marked on them. Hubley then made minor changes to the design to avoid infringement, and then started to produce these pup paperweights. They became quite popular, and various foundries produced them throughout the 20th century.
They felt it was highly unlikely that the "St Louis Pup" was connected to the Federal League team for a number of reasons:
- It seemed unlikely that the Fido dog would be modified (and also popular enough) in the short time frame, as the initial design had only just hit the market
- There are a number of variations (see the photo above) of the "St Louis Pup" design - both with the lettering on his butt, and in the lettering in the raised circle on the back of his head. This would indicate that the "St Louis Pup" was created over a longer period of time, and perhaps by different foundries.
One of these just sold at a Federal League premium price of $450 on ebay.
Other online auction houses have also sold them recently for premium prices (and attributed to the St. Louis Terriers)
https://www.selkirkauctions.com/auct...-fo_9184407809
https://huntauctions.com/live/view_l...st_number=1400
https://robertedwardauctions.com/auc...ther-rarities/
So.....has this dog been misattributed for many years? Or am I wrong?