Ode to Pre-War Football Cardboard

[cfhofer]

Hello,

I recently created an online virtual museum dedicated to the University of Pennsylvania Football teams from 1894-98. I'll continue to add to the site over the next year but it has a bunch of vintage memorabilia, photos and articles. It is very similar to my other site dedicated to Frank Hinkey and the 1890s Yale football teams. Take a look when time permits.

www.vintagepenna.com

Cheers!

Mark

[jefferyepayne]

Fantastic site, Mark! Thank you for putting this together. I really enjoyed looking through it at all the photos and artifacts you've collected.

jeff

[34.54sportscards]

Hey everyone, going to revive this thread. Would love to see if anyone has picked anything cool up in these past 4 years. Especially you, Jeff. If this gets rolling again, I’ll have a couple of things to share.

As for me, I will post a couple of my pre-war collectibles. I also have the Red Grange Yeast foam ad. One of the coolest advertisement pieces of Grange in my opinion.



Also pictured is someone I’m sure most of you football historians would recognize as the person we can thank for the game of football today. 1901 Sweet Caporal Heroes of the Spanish War Teddy Roosevelt.



Lastly, this is a card I’m still trying to do research on. The 1932 Bulgari Sport football card. This card has to be of someone famous. The majority of the other athletes in this set are named, so I don’t think they took a picture of some random guy kicking a ball. I’ve tried image searches to hunt down who this is but it’s been all dead ends. Does anyone know of a 1920s-1930s team that wore pinstripe jerseys? If I can figure that out I think it would be possible to narrow down who this is.

[jefferyepayne]

Great items!!! I really like that Roosevelt, nice football touch.

I've never been able to determine who the football player in the 1932 Bulgarian set is. Half of me thinks this photo isn't of an American football player at all. I've never seen an American football jersey striped like that for either a college or pro team. Anybody else ever able to photo match this player?

jeff

[34.54sportscards]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

Great items!!! I really like that Roosevelt, nice football touch.

I've never been able to determine who the football player in the 1932 Bulgarian set is. Half of me thinks this photo isn't of an American football player at all. I've never seen an American football jersey striped like that for either a college or pro team. Anybody else ever able to photo match this player?

jeff

I have thought before that maybe it wasn’t a football image too. But after comparing it to rugby images, it seems pretty likely that it’s football. Maybe it’s Canadian football though? I messaged Tim Brown over at Football Archeology and this is what he had to say about the picture.

“The stripes on the chest and sleeves on jerseys were known as stickum cloth, stickem cloth and various brand names. The cloth had stickiness and was meant to reduce fumbling, but it soon became a style statement as much as a functional issue. Although the stripes in the picture are narrower than the norm, most teams at all levels wore them, so there is little to go on to identify this team or player.”