Who ARE These Guys ?

[Michael B]

Jim,

Van Elslande is a Belgian surname. As people are wont to do when an item is posted here, I must ask, what is on the other side? Perhaps this will help identifying this side, though I suspect it may not be sports. I don't recall seeing that many signatures with just initials when it is Anglo names.

[JimStinson]

Originally Posted by Michael B

Jim,

Van Elslande is a Belgian surname. As people are wont to do when an item is posted here, I must ask, what is on the other side? Perhaps this will help identifying this side, though I suspect it may not be sports. I don't recall seeing that many signatures with just initials when it is Anglo names.

Here is the reverse, appears as if it was pulled from an address book, there were several others like it that I was able to identify but this one stumped me. I was thinking it may be some obscure team , either cycling as Travis mentioned , or rowing or Olympic related. Just don't know. It could be something destined for the waste basket but all of the other autographs that came with the group had some type of historical significance which led me to believe that maybe this one did too.
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[cubsfan-budman]

Arthur Hopcraft was a noted Soccer journalist in the UK. Also a screenwriter. Can't find his middle name to match it to "AJ" though.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by cubsfan-budman

Arthur Hopcraft was a noted Soccer journalist in the UK. Also a screenwriter. Can't find his middle name to match it to "AJ" though.

As Jim stated in his first post, this was a 1930's autograph album. Arthur Hopcraft was born in 1932.

[Michael B]

Jim,

These are definitely not Olympians. They could be a group of people with no sports affiliation at all or a group from some local team. I would guess they were all Coloradans based on the other side. It mentions both Crested Butte and Denver. The street address '207 S 26th Ave' is a designation found more in the western states than the east. I would also suspect that the two phone numbers 'MA 4224' and "HA 1472' are old phone exchanges from the area. My home town used TW - Twinbrook, back before the 3 number prefix became common.