Ode to Pre-War Football Cardboard

[clamendo]

Originally Posted by cfhofer

Hey guys,



When I acquired the Gelbert estate last year there was an old hairbrush included in the lot. I knew it was some sort of football award based on the center emblem ("UofP 1896"). However it was so nasty I just tossed it aside and thought nothing of it. It sat in my desk drawer for at least a month or so when my wife saw it one day and said the metal looked liked tarnished silver. Knowing absolutely nothing about jewelry, I spent the following weekend polishing it with a cotton ball and Goddard's Silver polish cream. Needless to say the brush is now proudly displayed with my other treasures.



Posted are before and after pics. The inscription along the top are Charles Gelbert's initials (CSGJr.) and along the bottom is his position that year (Left Half Back).



Mark

Well many years ago I picked up this lineup card that were inserted in the Philadelphia Inqurer from Ron Barksdale. The closest thing to a championship game was the Thanksgiving day game. In 1895, you are correct Penn was a powerhouse
Out scoring opponents 480-24, they were 14-0 and crushed Cornell in this game 46-2! Interestingly enough Wharton (I assume related to the Wharton School of Business) and your buddy Gelbert are pictured on the Penn side of the ball. I wonder why they didn't play Yale.

[cfhofer]

Carl,

That is a great lineup card. Charles "Buck" Wharton was another Penn All-American in 1895 and 1896. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1963. Below is an 1894 Penn team photo, with Wharton in the back far right.

"I wonder why they didn't play Yale"....Likely because of graduate students playing for Penn.

In 1893 Yale commented after a tightly fought contest that Penn players were "mature married men, age twenty-two to thirty, one with a child eight years old". The Intercollegiate Football Association (where Yale had a heavy influence) made attempts to restrict the use of graduate students at the end of that season, therefore Penn withdrew from the league. In 1894 only six of the eleven Penn starters were students of the College (undergraduates).

Yale didn't play Penn for over thirty years after that 1893 game.


Mark

[clamendo]

He looks like a pretty tough customer. That would have been a heck of a game in 1895. Yale (13-0-2) vs. Penn (14-0)....wow !

[Angyale]

Mark,

When Win Osgood left Cornell in 1892 he enrolled at Penn in 1893 and 1894 and played football for them. Likely his 6th or 7th year playing college football. Does he appear in your photo?

Eric

[jefferyepayne]

Great pickups, Carl and Mark!

Finally snagged this 1905 Rotograph of Fielding Yost.



Love what someone wrote on the front about Yost!

"More Prominent than the President"

jeff

[cfhofer]

Jeff: That is my favorite photo of Yost. As a huge Michigan collector and fan, you couldn't post a better picture on this forum. Very cool piece. Congrats!

Eric: Osgood is not in that photo, but he was on the 1893 and 1894 Penn teams. Here is another 1894 Penn photo I acquired from the George H. Brooke estate. Brooke is seated in the center, middle row. Osgood is to the left of him.

[jefferyepayne]

Great Penn photo, Mark. That's a beaut.

Also picked up this Dominoe Post Card of the 1905 Yale team that went 10-0.

College HOFer Tom Shevlin is on this PC.



Also have a photo of Shevlin hanging out with football legend Frank Hinkey at a game in 1914.



jeff