Tintype - what sport if any?

[drc]

I would guess they are some likely sort of athletes.

The uniforms are very similar to baseball, but the hats aren't baseball. To me, the hats point to them not being baseball players.

[19cbb]

I don't think the hats can give indication if this is or isn't a baseball-related tintype.

I won't venture to say if it is indeed a baseball tin or not.

What if this dude didn't carry a bat?



'Equipment is king' when buying early images.

[Runscott]

Tough question, but as cheap as it sold, you should just hang onto it.

I once bought a similar photo of a guy wearing a checkered belt, duo-tone shoes, and had a star on his shirt. There was no equipment.

I sold it for about $50, then later spotted the exact same uniform on a player photo in one of the SABR publications, and was able to even i.d. the actual team he played for. I sold short.

[aquarius31]

Thanks everyone for the great information. It's a neat tintype especially for $40 and it sounds like some of these "sports" tintypes go unidentified especially without the actual equipment in hand. Thanks again!

[jbsports33]

Looks more like Cricket or some other sport, they must have been playing something with the style of the pants and belts

[barrysloate]

Maybe bicyclists? No way to know for sure.

[aquarius31]

Originally Posted by 19cbb

'Equipment is king' when buying early images.

Well said Jimmy! Thank you everyone for your thoughts on this tintype. I enjoyed the guesses which included cricket, baseball, jockeys, and cyclists. I'm ok with not knowing the answer...learned a lot from the comments.

I never associated the bowler hats with baseball and I'm not at all saying that it is baseball but it's interesting to see that bowler hats and baseball are not impossible based on Jimmy's great photo and this one.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by drc

I would guess they are some likely sort of athletes.

The uniforms are very similar to baseball, but the hats aren't baseball. To me, the hats point to them not being baseball players.

A team cabinet of a late 1880's baseball team just sold on ebay, all wearing bowlers. True, they weren't wearing uniforms, but please tell me - what 1880's sport involved wearing this sort of hat? Cricket? jockeys? wrestlers? Perhaps 'bowlers'?

If any photo shows someone in an athletic uniform, and wearing a bowler, the odds are pretty good that the bowler wasn't part of their uniform. So if the hat precludes them being ball players, it precludes them being any sort of athlete - that leaves us assuming that these were guys who liked wearing athletic uniforms, but weren't athletes. Odd, but I guess it's possible.

I think it's more likely baseball than anything else.

Edited to add: back to the tintype I mentioned earlier. When I originally posted it, I had more than 50% of respondents telling me they did NOT think it was baseball. Ironically, some used the fact that he did NOT have a hat on to explain their thoughts. I later was able to i.d. the actual team that he played for. He just didn't feel like wearing a hat when he had the photo taken, just as these two just felt like wearing bowlers. Perhaps they thought it made them look better for the photo? Who knows.

[Runscott]

I apologize for offending anyone when I jump in these threads with such gusto, but the only thing I collect any more is pre-wwi (generally non-pro) baseball photographs, and we rarely discuss such things here.

Thanks for putting up with me. And Leon - thanks for doing such a helluva job encouraging all sorts of non-card baseball-related discussions. Many of us remember a time when this sort of sub-forum was basically a dead area.