1880's Detroit Wolverines Paper Dolls

[walnutts]

Butch - Thanks - I am nearly certain that you are right and these were not issued affixed to any type of backing. The fact that all of the ones I have now seen (thanks to the posts on these Forums) and the ones we own all appear to be hand cut (rather than die cut) seems to point to them having been issued in either sheets or "Paper Boll" books - likely as Paper Dolls of some type for boys. I assume you have checked all of the McLoughlin catalogs that the American Antiquarian Society has on line so I won't duplicate this research but I do have another thought. We have handled hundreds (if not thousands) of McLoughlin Brothers Chromolithograph Children's Books, Paper Dolls, Paper Toys, Card Games, Board Games, etc. (of all types not just sports related) over the past 33+ years and the quality of the color lithography seen on these baseball "Paper Dolls" is nowhere even close to the craftsmanship that McLoughlin produced in the 1880's and 1890's. These Baseball Paper Figures feature a simple 3 or maybe 4 color printing process while McLoughlin products of this period were much more complex - printed with 6, 8, sometimes 10 or 12 stones. I think there might be a very good possibility that these Baseball Paper Figures we published by someone other than McLoughlin - the quality of the lithography is just not up to what McLoughlin Bros. were doing at the time. Just my opinion but perhaps another avenue of research.
Tom

[Butch7999]

Hi Tom -- wouldn't presume to disagree with your experienced observations and critique of the quality of the figures,
but the fact that they look identical to those pictured on the gameboard / playing field of McLoughlin's circa 1892 Base Ball Game
certainly associates them in some way with McLoughlin.

American Antiquarian was indeed our source for the McLoughlin catalogues, and with a little further digging there earlier last evening,
we did spot an "American Jockeys" set of horse-racing-themed paper dolls (the only sports-themed paper doll set we've found),
and other sets of paper dolls, er, cut-outs, for boys, featuring "Wild West", Boy Scouting, and marching band figures,
as well as the previously noted military sets, in the 1910s-era catalogues. Still haven't seen anything baseball-related, though.
However, the digitized catalogues are far from a complete run, and even several of those present are missing pages.
The mystery continues, and therefore so must the search...

[Joe_G.]

Here is one in my collection with a slightly different pose than above.

[barrysloate]

Any possibility these came from a newspaper supplement? Could a Detroit paper have included them as pieces to be cut out and used for some type of tabletop game? Just a guess, but there are other examples of this from the late 19th century.

[aquarius31]

Thanks to Carlton's great photographs and write-up on the 2013 National, I think we may have confirmation of what these cut outs looked like in their original form! I grabbed this from Carlton's website (Tick and Tick booth). It's difficult to make out what is written underneath "AMUSEMENT FOR BOYS TO CUT OUT" but it may tell us the manufacturer unless it's written somewhere underneath the framed section or on the back.