Unknown 19th century Baseball Cards Help Please!

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom

I have just purchased a 19th century Trade card album with the most fantastic Baseball image I have seen - unfortunately they have been trimmed to look like die cuts - they are on card stock and the original cards are surely a tobacco card issue but I can't match them up with any issue I have ever seen. Does any one know who published the original cards? Any info would be helpful. Here are links to photos of the Trade Card Album Pages.

<>
<>
<>
<>

THanks,
Tom

[Archive]

Posted By: AdamBaxter

..but I'll take a stab at it and say that these appear to be cut-outs from an Old Judge advertising piece/poster? Lew Lipset mentioned these "die-cuts" in the cinderella card section of his Encyclopedia. The cut-out of Richardson looks almost the same as the one featured in Lew's book.

Regards,
Adam

[Archive]

Posted By: JC

Very nice and eye appealing to look at! I would frame the pages...

[Archive]

Posted By: Jay Miller

Tom---Adam is right. These "die cuts" are not die cuts at all. They were trimmed off an Old Judge advertising poster. The poster is very large and, as far as I know, there is only one full copy in existence which is at the HOF. I have a copy of the poster which I purchased from the HOF which shows all the images that you have in your scrapbook. Interestingly, some dealers have offered individual player cut outs as some kind of seperate issue. This is wrong, they were just trimmed off this poster. This is a nice item which I'm sure would fetch $1000 or more at auction.

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

Often, when a collector obtains a scrapbook that contains 19th century baseball cards, scrapps, etc. their first inclination is to remove the individual cards by soaking, cutting, etc., usually with the idea of selling them. It's just my opinion, but if this scrapbook were in my posession, I would refrain from trying to remove the individual cut-outs. For one thing, the likelihood of damaging them is considerable as they are probably quite delicate. I think it would be a shame to tamper with with these pages as they were carefully arranged in the scrapbook, resulting in a very interesting and visually appealing piece. Because they are often broken down, scrapbooks with baseball items in them of this quality are not incredibly common. Tom, congrats on a cool find and thanks for sharing the images with the board. You certainly don't see scrapbooks like this every day.

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom

THanks Guys!! This was a real puzzler.

[Archive]

Posted By: prewarsports

I had a nice Caruthers last year and sold it to a noted Old Judge collector via ebay and it received well over $200, so that should give you some type of a guage on their value.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie Vognar

on ebay--lots of nice and interesting items, but only one baseball player: a Scrapps Getzien, which I needed for my Scrapps set. I cut the portion of the page with the card off and soaked it--and the card floated away...in two pieces! It had been very carefully mended after being torn apart. Bye bye Getzien, bye bye scrapbook page...

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom

Thanks for the help with these "die cuts" - if anyone is interested in buying them I listed them on eBay on Friday night. The item number is #5103279157

Here is the URL:
<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=44821&item=5103279157&gt;