1865 Brooklyn Atlantics CDV for sale

[Jlighter]

Mr. Olbermann weighs in on the issue.

http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/20...baseball-card/

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Jlighter

Mr. Olbermann weighs in on the issue.

http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/20...baseball-card/

Olberman argues that this item does not feature advertising, so it is not the same type of 'baseball card' cdv as the Peck & Snyder cards. By default, this makes it 'something else', which means it falls into the 'calling card' category of cdv (an ancient business card), and therefore, not a 'baseball card'.

Does Olberman really believe that members of the Brooklyn Atlantics were handing out this cdv at soirees as personal identifiers? It's more likely that if team photos were made for the players, they would have been created in a much larger format - this is borne out by team cabinet cards that were created in very limited quantities. Teams still have team photos ordered in sufficient quantities to satisfy the needs of their players;e.g-your ten year old child's soccer team. Nothing's really changed in that regard.

In my opinion team cdvs such as this one were probably used for advertising, even though there isn't a commercial business name on them. Perhaps they were offered to the public by Williamson (the photographer) to advertise his skills, or maybe they were used to advertise the team...by the team. If the team commissioned Williamson to produce a pile of these, and then handed them out to people, wouldn't that be advertisement, and thus qualify them for 'baseball card' status?

But there's only one of these (the loc version is a different animal). Assuming it's not an albumen photo removed from something else and affixed to an old mount (and that might be a big assumption), another possibility is that it's a prototype that Williamson created for a team representative, with the idea that if approved, such items could be produced in larger quantities, for advertising.

Another possible use: it wasn't uncommon for teams to have a pile of postcards created, and then use those to advertise their team, handing them out at games (Western Bloomers and other bloomer teams come to mind). Were these 'baseball cards'? I don't know that this ever occurred, but I can imagine a team selling cdv's of the team, at games. It was expensive to have photos made, and gate receipts weren't generally that big, so I doubt they gave them away, but I suppose it's possible.