Lelands Offers Extraordinary CDV Find Showing Baseball’s Beginnings

[h2oya311]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

He has his team and name listed on his collar as “Brouthers-Buffalo” which seemingly would indicate that it dates from 1881-1885 when with Buffalo. He may have simply been in Detroit playing the Wolverines when he sat for the picture, similar to some of the Old Judge “proof” cards being taken of some teams while they were in town playing a different teams so the team city and location where photo was taken not being the same.

I was just editing my prior post as you wrote this post (so before I saw your note). Very interesting. I would venture to guess that this was issued between 1885-86 while he was “in between” teams as Buffalo sold him to Detroit during this time due to financial troubles. But certainly it could have been taken while on a road trip to Detroit prior to 1886. I hadn’t noticed this before. Very astute observation.

And congrats on the pick-up, Brian! I’ll update my HOF earliest checklist accordingly.