1889 Indianapolis Hoosiers N172 thoughts.......

[MuddyMules]

I am considering collecting the 1889 Indianapolis Hoosiers N172 Old Judge cards. I am from Indiana and the history behind these cards, players, team, etc. has me curious. I am looking for any information that any of you have regarding collecting this team. Difficulty? Availability? Potential trading? Additional 1889 items? I feel some sort of need to pursue this thanks to Joe and Jay. I thank them now, but may regret this later!

Below is the 1889 roster along with the pose number that I have found to have a card from 1889. My research has come from the greatest book that I cannot put down, The Photographic Baseball Cards of Goodwin & Company (1886 – 1890) and other research has been done on metmuseum, cardtarget, REA, google and ebay. The cards listed with an * I currently own. The cards in ( ) may not have an 1889 version available, which is one of the things that I do not know.

Charley Bassett: 22-2 (cannot find a card for 22-1)

Henry Boyle: 36-1, 36-4 (cannot find a card for 36-2, 36-3)

Dick Buckley: 49-1, 49-3, *49-4, 49-5 (cannot find 49-2)

Bill Burdick: 52-1, 52-2, 52-3 (cannot find 52-4)

Con Daley: 112-1, 112-2 (cannot find 112-3, 112-4, 112-5)

Jerry Denny: 124-1, 124-2 (cannot find 124-3)

Charlie Getzein: 186-1, 186-4 (cannot find 186-2, 186-3, 186-5)

Pebbly Jack Glasscock: 191-1, *191-2, 191-4 (cannot find 191-3)

Paul Hines: 227-1 (cannot find 227-2, 227-3, 227-4)

Jack McGeachy: *310-1, 310-3 (cannot find 310-2, 310-4)

George Myers: (cannot find 337-1, 337-2, 337-3)

Amos Rusie: 395-2, 395-3, 395-4, *395-5 (cannot find 395-1)

Jumbo Schoeneck: *404-1, 404-3, 404-5 (cannot find 404-2, 404-4)

Emmett Seery: 406-2 (cannot find 406-1, 406-3, 406-4)

Lev Shreve: 418-1, *418-2, 418-3, 418-4, 418-6 (cannot find 418-5, 418-7)

Marty Sullivan: 444-2, 444-5 (cannot find 444-1, 444-3, 444-4)

Jim Whitney: 498-3 (cannot find 498-1, 498-2)

Varney Anderson, Ed Andrews and Gus Krock: These players are on the 1889 roster and are listed in the book, but I do not believe that they have an Indianapolis card.

Jack Fanning, Jack Fee, Andy Sommers and Jack Weckbecker: These players are on the 1889 roster, I cannot find a card for them and they are not listed in the book.

Thank you all in advance for any and all input.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Good luck with Rusie, most of them present very light images.

[cyseymour]

A few things:

a) It could be pretty tough to come by every pose (even the known ones) for each player. So you might want to consider collecting just one pose for each player. That's a lot more affordable and achievable.

b) You are lucky you are not collecting 88's. It has this manager card called McGreachery which is rather tough to come by.

c) If you do choose to chase every pose, you can go through past auction results on cardtarget.com and VCP if you haven't already.

[Fred]

Ted,

You're lucky Larry Corcoran isn't part of your want list...

[Joe_G.]

Here is a list I have for Indy (each year). The 75kb limit for pictures will no doubt make the chart hard to read. I can send you a copy in Excel if you'd like. 1889 is not a tough year to collect and you could obtain all poses if you are persistent, patient, and willing to dig deep when necessary (for Rusie). As Jamie stated, it might be nice to first go after one pose of each player and then decide if you want to complete all poses.

Then again, you could take my approach to Detroit, ie all poses, all years, N172, N173, & N175

[cyseymour]

Great list, Joe.

Just to elaborate on my previous point, one of the reasons it is so expensive to get every pose, is that, you not only have to purchase every card instead of just one card per player, which itself is 3-5 times more expensive, but the other thing is that, as you get deeper into the project, you become more and more desperate, and continue to bid higher and higher for each card. So I think you are probably looking at at least 5x more expensive to go after every pose instead of just one pose per player.

[MuddyMules]

Thank you for the great comments! I appreciate all the input that I can get. Keep it coming.