Orioles1954
07-12-2012, 09:03 PM
Hello everyone,
I normally only collect cards, but last year I purchased a scrapbook signed in the Washington DC area from 1939. The scrapbook included hundreds of newspaper articles, loose photographs and five team-signed pages. On the first page, I was looking up the death dates for each of the players and was interested to find one of Elmer Gedeon who died in 1944. He was the first major leaguer killed in action in World War II and the only to die in the European theater. Gedeon had 15 at bats for the Senators in 1939 and none after that. On the very next page has Bob Neighbors, who played in September 1939 for the St. Louis Browns. He was the only player to be killed in the Korean war when he was shot down over North Korea. Neighbors made his debut on 9/16/39 and Gedeon on 9/18/39 in Washington, pinpointing these signatures to that homestand. They never played against each other.
Being that the pages were in deplorable condition, I decided to extract them as neatly as I could from the pages. I then mounted them to an index card and had my wife use her pretty handwriting to give appropriate notations. I was able to find a neat photo of Neighbors that just fit to the left of the cut. I personally gave these to Jame Spence in late April. After examining the Gedeon cut, he informed me it's only the second one he's ever seen in the hobby. He mentioned that the Neighbors cut was also extremely rare. In order to protect them from my children, I sent these cuts out to be encapsulated. They arrived today! Normally I "bid and flip" items. However, these are keepers. Enjoy!
James
I normally only collect cards, but last year I purchased a scrapbook signed in the Washington DC area from 1939. The scrapbook included hundreds of newspaper articles, loose photographs and five team-signed pages. On the first page, I was looking up the death dates for each of the players and was interested to find one of Elmer Gedeon who died in 1944. He was the first major leaguer killed in action in World War II and the only to die in the European theater. Gedeon had 15 at bats for the Senators in 1939 and none after that. On the very next page has Bob Neighbors, who played in September 1939 for the St. Louis Browns. He was the only player to be killed in the Korean war when he was shot down over North Korea. Neighbors made his debut on 9/16/39 and Gedeon on 9/18/39 in Washington, pinpointing these signatures to that homestand. They never played against each other.
Being that the pages were in deplorable condition, I decided to extract them as neatly as I could from the pages. I then mounted them to an index card and had my wife use her pretty handwriting to give appropriate notations. I was able to find a neat photo of Neighbors that just fit to the left of the cut. I personally gave these to Jame Spence in late April. After examining the Gedeon cut, he informed me it's only the second one he's ever seen in the hobby. He mentioned that the Neighbors cut was also extremely rare. In order to protect them from my children, I sent these cuts out to be encapsulated. They arrived today! Normally I "bid and flip" items. However, these are keepers. Enjoy!
James