Chadwick's woodcut collection
 

Hi All,
For several years, I've been trying to identify some of the more obscure baseball woodcuts related to our national pastime. We're all aware of Harper's and Leslie's but there are a number of publications that had very short runs such as the 1877 NY Sporting Gazette (very limited online info re this publication).

George- Where did the 1877 Chicago lithograph come from? I've never seen it. I have this somewhat similar steel engraving.

Gary,
I think the non-color version is likely a woodcut from an actual publication vs stand-alone based on the toning and dimensions although I'm not 100% certain since I don't have it in hand : )

I agree. It does looks like it is printed on newspaper.

One of my favorites is this 1890 Players League.

George, I have a copy of the baseball pages from the Du Mouchelle catalogue and could not find the listing for the woodcuts. It is possible they appeared in a different section, I no longer have the full catalogue. However, I do believe the Chadwick reference since so many of the items clearly had once belonged to Chadwick.
I have attached photos of an 1876 Peck and Snyder advertiser with numerous woodcuts, or at least I believe they are. I particularly like the George Wright, based upon his Warren cdv,(see his own copy) and, of course, the 1869 Cincinnati team, which is from the Clipper, I think. If you would like to see an 1873 Peck and Snyder catalogue to see if there are any woodcuts, let me know. Do you think the color illustrations are colored woodcuts?

Bruce- I auctioned off that scrapbook in my March 7, 2002 auction, lot #3. I do believe it originated from DuMouchelles, but there were many things that were sold privately before the auction, so it is possible this was one of them. The book was truly amazing, wish I could remember everything it contained. But I do clearly remember seeing woodcuts that I had never seen before, and not a single time since.

I thought you would know, Barry. I have only seen a few items come up for auction in recent years that I could say definitely came from that auction.
I always thought a number of things, especially lesser books etc were sold before the auction. It would be fun for someone to do a little history of that auction.

The odd thing about the DuMouchelles Auction was how bad a fit it was for that collection. I still get their flyers, and they sell mostly antique furniture, paintings, bric-a-brac, etc. When they were consigned this collection it was clear they had no expert on staff who knew anything about it. I think it was given to them because the family lived nearby. No book had any reliable descriptions; $5000 books were estimated at $100, and $100 books had estimates in the thousands; and most comically, the cover was adorned with a blatantly fake T206 Wagner. It was a mess, but the bidders knew very well what was there. It was a once-in-a-lifetime baseball library, and unfortunately when the owner died he did not leave specific instructions to his family how to best liquidate it.

Thanks guys for looking into it. It's too bad that we don't have additional images from that auction or digitized format of some of the more obscure woodcuts in that Chadwick collection.

Bruce, you likely already know this but your 1869 Red Stockings front page woodcut came from the October 2, 1869 NY Clipper. I've seen a handful of instances of the same woodcuts being used in other publications either in the same year or years later. Below is one example that I own. It's the 1860 Brooklyn Excelsiors and is the identical one from what we believe to be the Chadwick collection. This print was depicted on September 4, 1875 in the NY Clipper however it was also used for this much more obscure publication called the NY Sporting Gazette in 1877.

As for your question on the Red Stockings publication, the colored plates appear to be woodcuts that either had some color applied during the printing process (there are people on this forum who could provide details) or they were hand colored after the fact. The latter is less likely as it's much more time consuming. If you see a Leslie's or Harper's woodcut that is colored, it's 100% done after the fact as it was not part of the original printing process. I believe there were several publications who were using chromolithography processes from early on and that's also evident in some of the color plates that you see on some of the 19th century baseball books.

George- that 1860 Excelsiors woodcut is among the most important baseball woodcuts in existence. And of course, the mammoth plate salt print photograph of that image resides in the Spalding Collection. The good news is it's still in the NYPL.

Barry, thanks for the more info, are you sure we can’t get you to do a brief article on the auction?
George, yes the color is hand done on this, I was most interested in your opinion on that they really were woodcuts. There is also hand done color on the 1873 catalogue illustrations. Red Stockings attached for example.
I would love a list or copy of the article when you are done. Great research and subject.

Bruce- I didn't attend the auction, and had someone bid on my behalf. So I don't think I have enough meat for a full article. However, if you have specific questions I might be able to answer them.

I lent my catalog to a hobby friend a number of years ago, and unfortunately he passed away before he had a chance to return it. So all I can offer is what I can remember.

Thanks Barry. I have a copy of what I think are a majority, if not all the baseball related items, just not the whole catalogue. One of the items is especially intriguing, actually most are, but it is described as the diary of Harry Wright’s son, covering baseball etc.. Not to mention the 1859 hand drawn scorecard among others.
I once got a lot of Chadwick, non badseball related books that I believe came from that sale. The most interesting one is Botts, The Great Rebellion, the first book Chadwick ever edited, with a number of annotations and a few further editorial changes. The author was his in law.

Nice conversation about these. Thanks for sharing the info, guys.

Simply Gorgeous!

Love the History behind sport.

Great Post Thank You

CV