RARE Roycroft Baseball Elbert Hubbard Help Please
 

Hello everyone! I have this vintage, rare baseball that I need help with value, and any extra info on. It is a Roycroft baseball, turn of the century, made by Elbert Hubbard. My info is that he made some baseballs for the family baseball team in the day, and there are only a few in existence. Anyone have any info?

TIA, Laura

roycrofter
 

Sorry, I don't have direct information on the ball, but the design is the famous Roycrofter symbol, which i think means, do your best under God, or something close to that. There is at least one very nice Roycrofter booklet about baseball called "How I found my brother", published in 1907 for the Reach company.(i do not currently have a copy, but Max might). If I recall it serves as an ad for Reach. In addition, the famous illustrator Denison, designed a number of Roycrofter books and illustrated "Casey at the bat" for St Nicholas magazine.

Roycroft symbol is the furniture makers symbol. Roycroft furniture is worth a small fortune.

possibly made by reach
 

As I mentioned in my previous post, Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycrofters, wrote a book entitled How I Found my Brother, published by Roycrofters in 1907 for the A J Reach co. I just reread the story which involves early baseball and early homemade baseball's. At he conclusion of the story the reader is brought to 1907 and the brother is introduced as now a supervisor at the Reach company so it is possible the ball was made by Reach and stamped with the
Roycrofter symbol. It is also possible it was made by Roycrofters for their use. Of interest to book collectors, Dard Hunter was involved in the publication and illustration of the little booklet. Further research may turn up a Roycrofter catalogue for their books and furniture that also has baseballs. i think it is interesting and if made by Roycroft, should be very well made.

Great piece. Also, great info bgar3...

The booklet can be seen here:

https://archive.org/details/howifoundmybrot00shopgoog

Hubbard info
 

Laura,
No help to you but can't resist commenting that my father was named for Elbert Hubbard (Nelson) and we have a number of leather bound turn-of-the-century books at home that I got from aunts and uncles over a period of years authored by Hubbard. Have only briefly even looked at them but they sit on the bookshelf out of memory for my dad and his family. Was always uncomfortable with his name as a boy--I mean, whose dad is named Elbert Hubbard? Just mine. Anyhow, thanks to all who commented on this--I don't know a great deal about Hubbard. A bit but this adds to it. Thx

I have the original of the booklet somewhere and will hopefully be able to dig it out of hiding next week. If I recall correctly, it has at least a cover illustration of a boy with a baseball, as the google copy doesn't seem to have the cover.

Max

Eric, interesting stuff, the books have some value, some more than others and there are various ways to check what you have. if you would like to shoot me a list i could try to point you in the right direction. be careful with the leather bindings that are limp leather, as they are not that stable, you also might like to look in the back of each book to see if it was one of the limited numbered editions, and whether or not the illustrator is named. good luck