Jim Rowe Postcards
 

Can anyone shed some light on Jim Rowe postcards for me? When were they printed, issued, what are they worth, etc?

1960s-1970s...He used Burke and Brace photos and put them on Kodak backed postcard paper. They are not worth a whole lot and you can pick up most of them for a buck or two when you find them in lots. It's a cheap way to get photos of early 20th century players, but sometimes the quality is lacking.

Is there a catalog of them anywhere? I found one of a player (Sam Nahem) who last played in 1948. Was that likely printed in the 60's and 70's? Or before?

There is no catalog for them...They were definitely made in the 1960s or 70s. Not sure how he went about selling them...he may have advertised in the Sporting News or something like that. In 1977 he apparently sold sets of the 1956 Braves and 1929 Cubs..The SCD lists the original price for the sets so he must have advertised them somewhere. I've heard lots of people say that the Rowe postcards go back to the 1950s, but I have yet to see any proof of that.

I think if you were trying to collect all the postcards that Rowe put out it could be a neverending task.

I'm not trying to collect all of them, but I am trying to identify this one particular postcard. It strikes me as odd that he would sell a postcard of a no-name player 20 years after his retirement, which is why I'm suspicious that it dates from the late 40s or 50s.

Almost all of the Jim Rowe postcards are of players who were retired...and it's not odd to see a "no-name" player...I see them all the time and have owned many. Jim Rowe was not making postcards in the 1940s or 50s and I'll stand by that until someone offers proof.

I'll take your word for it. I just wondered because my internet research came up with surprisingly little for Jim Rowe. I'll keep looking.

He did them as a collector issue for guys who wanted player photos of a specific team or a specific year. You can't have a complete 1948 Phillies set without Sam Nahem, so he created a postcard of Sam Nahem. There was a relatively small group of early collectors who would write to each other looking for specific player photos and Rowe was one of the guys that would fill their needs, especially since he had Burke's images.

Scott

So basically he was a photograph collector. I guess that makes sense. I wonder how the licensing worked for those pictures...

He wasn't a collector as far as I know, but he was a photographer who I believe worked with George Brace and thus had access to probably the world's largest archive of baseball negatives.

Looks like you're right about the negatives. My research finally turned up some results:

http://www.lelands.com/Auction.aspx/...llection/page1

A 2006 auction of his collection. Photographs, negatives and even some cards from the 80s.

Well, I went straight to the source and asked Mary Brace (George's daughter) what the deal is with the Rowe postcards and she told me that Rowe and Brace were good friends and traveled together to Cooperstown and Spring Training and they both belonged to a group called the "Hit and Pitch Club". Brace allowed Rowe to use his negatives and any profit made was Jim's to keep with the understanding that the negatives would return to Brace if something happened to Jim...Jim moved to Florida and George lost track of him...When Jim died there was no provisions made for the negatives to return to the Brace family.

Btw Mary still sells her father's photos at this website:

http://www.bracephoto.com/

I've purchased several photos from Bracephoto in the past. A great place to find quality pictures of some hard to find players.

THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do research.

That's pretty sad though, regarding the negatives. I wonder who won that auction... It would have been nice to see the negatives returned to their rightful owners.

So is there an authoritative catalog of the postcards that were released by Rowe? Or are we just left speculating based on the negatives?

I'm not sure if Mary Brace's story is correct. It was my understanding that Jim Rowe purchased many of George Burke's negatives. Brace also worked with Burke and had many of his negatives as well.

Both would sell postcards to a collectors in the 70's and 80's. I bought hundreds if not thousands of postcards from Jim Rowe back then. I think I paid about 50 cents each. The ones from the original negatives were beautiful. I would mail them out to the old timers to get them autographed, and on several occasions the players would write me and ask where they could purchase copies of the photos. Once a former Yankee who played a few games in the 40's showed up at my house after getting a letter from me with a few photos from his playing days!

Rowe would sell 2 types of photos, those from original negatives and those that were copied from other photos. The copied photos weren't nearly as nice.

By the way...here is a quote from a 2006 SABR newsletter:

"JIM ROWE COLLECTION BEING AUCTIONED OFF

Sports Collectors Digest reports that the Lelands auction house is featuring 8,000 original George Burke negatives as well as both photos and negatives from Jim Rowe’s personal collection. The George Burke negatives are being sold in one lot. Rowe’s collection is being broken up into eight lots, with the most significant lot containing 25,000+ negatives. We can only hope that these two collections of negatives end up with buyers who will eventually make these historical items available to future researchers, but the odds probably aren’t great on that happening. Those who want to visit the Lelands website should go to http://www.lelands.com/ The auction on the Burke and Rowe items ends on December 14th."

There is some bitterness there between the families..I could tell that from her email, but I won't post her email word for word on the forum. We may never know exactly what the circumstances are as both Rowe and Burke are now gone...I think what is most important to know is that these items were made in the 1960's to early 80's time period. The Rowe postcards are confusing to many collectors who run across them for the first time because the Kodak backed postcard paper he used dated back to the late 1940s.

That is INCREDIBLY cool. Why does that never happen to me?

So does anybody know how Rowe produced the cards? Were they based on orders he received? Or did he publish a catalog of what was available? Because if there is a catalog, then there is a comprehensive list. But if he just printed them to meet orders, the negatives are the only list.

Jim Rowe Postcards Ad
 

Found this ad in a 1974 copy of a collector mag, Sports Scoops. I am sure he advertised in other mags of the period as well. I didn't realize that Jim Rowe was the source for the T200 Fatima reprint Postcards. I bought the Cleveland T200 PC a few years back and only now figured it out!

The ad mentions that he had a free 6-page list of PCs and a free sample!

Great ad. I believe the mystery photo is the 'Ol Lefthander, Joe Nuxhall.

Definitely Joe Nuxhall.

Scott

That is super-cool. The Fatima negatives, if they're really the originals, are probably worth a boatload. Now I get why the Braces are ticket off. I would be too.

They were not original. I looked through that lot, there were very few quality original negatives. Most were absolutely horrible. Some were like 3rd generation copy negs of copy negs. There were copy negs of newspaper articles that happened to picture a player. That lot sold for about what it was worth.

Scott

I knew Jim Rowe. I knew him well. He was an avid collector since he was a very young man. Mr Rowe and Mr. Brace were long time friends and collaborated on many projects. At some ooint Mr. Rowe acquired a number of negatives from Mr. Brace and he became more and more invovled in photograghy beginning in the 60's. He made photos for other collectors, many that were autographed. He corresponded with many of the baseball players as well, who requested photos of themselves to use to distribute to their fans. He also provided photos to the Baseball hall of fame in cooperstown for many oldtimers as they were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Mr Rowe himself was named as a honorary hall of famer for his many contributions. He was a walking encyclopedia of baseball statistics and trivia. He had a great talent for writing and would use that talent on many occasions to help promote some of the oldtimers into the hall of fame. So to answer your question. yes he was definitely a collector, and was one a a group of collector friends in the Chicago area to start the very first baseball collectors show. And yes, he believed that any man who wore the uniform, had a story to tell and was worth having a photo. And yes he was a die hard Cub fan, which is why many of his photos are Chicago based. Hope this helps.

Thank you jdmeltz. I think you are more on the right track in saying that Mary Brace's story may not be exactly accurate. I happen to know that Mr. Rowe did not disappear off to Florida. He lived in his same home for many many years and in fact attended Mr Brace's funeral, and gave Mrs. Brace condolences and probably attended the after reception. Rest assured the negatives are most likely in the hands of the rightful owners.

I think I have a couple; really liked both images. Same backs and same handwriting:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...s_%20Robin.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...C%20Koufax.jpg

Especially like the Robin Roberts image, very nice.

Most of the Rowe postcards were borderless, but that does look like his handwriting.

Rowe John "Red" Kleinow Postcard
 

Here is my Rowe John "Red" Kleinow Postcard.


Patrick

I own about 20 Phillies with the same handwritten notations of the players on the back...some are more common than others but they pop up on ebay fairly often (although not always identified as Rowe postcards).

Joshua

I probably overpaid handsomely, but look at this fabulous Hank Aaron postcard I grabbed last week. Seems to be part of this same collection.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...194ac55199.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1f38f052a1.jpg

Aaron
 

Jason,

Yes; sure looks like a Rowe postcard to me. That's definitely a nice picture of Hank. I have a few examples of Brooks Robinson in my collection and the writing is similar.

Congrats on the pickup!

Someone named BBC Emporium is now selling off the Jim Rowe negatives on eBay. Typing in "Medium Frame Negative - Jim Rowe Archive," you'll get "10,000+ results."

This seems like a great source for cataloguing the Rowe releases, but it would be a tough task, as there are no dates associated with the negatives.

rowe and brace
 

Jim Rowe and Brace made a deal with the HOF to copy photos from the Hall's library. I have no idea what the terms were. Anyway, they loaded up the car with a copy stand and film and drove to Cooperstown from Chicago. You have to remember, Cooperstown is mostly inaccessible to the rest of Earth.

When they arrived, the guy from the museum said, "Oh, we have been trying to contact you. We don't care to do this deal."

This was really lame.

Anyway, Brace said to Rowe, "Well, as long as we are here, want to look around the museum?"

Rowe, furious, said, "Hell no." And they got in the car and returned home.

This is a true story Rowe told me back in the late seventies.

Mr. Rowe was a great guy. I remember buying tons of Cardinals players photos in the early 80s He not only would take photos of major league players , but he also had tons of minor league players. The problems began after both gentlemen were deceased and the others family members wanted a piece of the pie.

I am not affiliated with, nor have I done any business with :

https://www.ebay.com/str/bbcemporium