Any info on this Piece of Baseball History?

[bwild22]

Thanks! I thought it was so cool - I have Bill's game used hat from when he played with the Indians as mentioned - his scrapbook is so cool too

If you guys are not familiar with Mr. Cissell its well worth a google search - I was amazed - he was touted widely as the next big thing - a combination of many of the greats, like hornsby, cobb, etc... Comiskey paid a kings ransom (most ever given for a players rights up to that time) and the guy literally had a few nice years, led the league in hitting for awhile one season, but never delivered on the promise - in his scrap book its so cool how he is quoted as saying how the white sox giving up so much for his rights was the biggest burden he ever had to bare - really cool how he felt such high expectations after comiskeys huge gamble on him - and said he had to be tossed into the lineup from day 1 because guys who people give up that much to get are not allowed an opportunity to be brought up and groomed slowly - just a fascinating story in all honesty

[thecatspajamas]

That Fonseca photo looks like the work of George Burke, who I think was official photographer for the White Sox at the time (I know he was for the Cubs, starting in 1929, but not sure exactly when he assumed the role for the White Sox as well). I thought I might have a match of it in my files, but didn't turn up anything. Any chance you could post pics of the other photos in the album? I'd be curious to scan through them for matches as well.

Also, I don't know if anyone has suggested it, but you should NOT remove the photos from the album. Keep the whole thing together as it is, especially with the cover having the team and Cissell's name on it. Even if it wasn't issued by the team, with that cover and having the provenance that it does makes it much more desirable than a generic album of signed photos would be.

[bwild22]

Here are 18 of the 25

[bwild22]

Ok here are the rest of the 25 so 25 total - most are autographed as you can see - only a cpl that are not

[bwild22]

pic of the studio marking

[stlcardinalsfan]

Great book. Can anyone tell me what they believe this is valued at?

[Scott Garner]

Beautiful signed album. Great signed photos! Congrats on this pickup!!

[leftygrove10]

That is a beautiful album! I love the pictures! It's so cool that many of them are autographed....

[bwild22]

Thanks guys! I really appreciate all the great comments

a user on here identified photos as looking like those of george burke- ironically the studio name RADIUM then matched the studio Burke worked for back in the era too!

I am guessing Burke put these together for each of the White Sox and Cubs players back in the day.... and I imagine Cissell then got his teammates to sign for him - which makes sense why his photo is one of the couple not signed