Baseball Tradecard Questions

[drc]

I've not seen it before. The bird cage was for comic effect. A fair number of 1800s trade cards were intentionally comical.

If it didn't contain wood pulp, the paper could remain white all these years. Wood pulp is what makes 1900s newspapers turn brown and brittle, and it wasn't used in early paper. Counterintuitively, 1800s paper can be whiter and brighter than 1950s paper.

[barrysloate]

Currier and Ives issued a number of baseball lithographs that depicted African-Americans using less than flattering stereotypes. Among them were umpires wearing birdcages over their heads for protection. The notion that umpiring was a dangerous avocation goes back to baseball's earliest days.

That is a nice trade card and from the scan looks real to me. But you have to examine the paper in hand to be sure.

[aelefson]

Thank you for everyone's help! Having it in hand, it does appear to be real but I will double check it with a blacklight and a loupe later this week. My small amount of googling thus far shows that the company produced organs and their name is found on other tradecards of the era. And thank you to David and Barry for the historical insights. I doubted the cage was ever actually used but I had no idea there are other images out there. I might have stumbled upon a new area to collect (images showing the umpire in a cage).
Thanks again,
Alan

[drc]

Just going by your scan, I would guess it is genuine.