Hi George, thanks for that photo -- the pic, of course, is from Carlton's amazing website, and those items were part of
the offerings from Mechanick's Historical Gallery at the 2007 NSCC. Did you (or anyone else here) pick those up (then or since)?
Actually, though, no one here has yet suggested the die-cuts came from a tabletop baseball game (although they may well have)
-- only that the artwork (except for the colorizing) was identical to that in the circa 1892 McLoughlin game we showed
(sadly, not ours of course).
We've never seen those die-cuts included in any example of the 18 different verifiable McLoughlin baseball games --
which is not, by any means, to absolutely rule them out as playing pieces; they may merely have been lost
from any of the scarce-to-rare examples of those games that have surfaced.
The wood-mounted examples of the die-cuts offered in 2007 by MHG, however, rather than being original parts
to a game, might have been crafted and assembled at any point in the last 90 to 120 years or so by anyone who had
the original unattached die-cuts in their possession. Certainly the little labels on the wooden bases are not "period."
We're not sure how many collectors on board here have (or have had) one or more McLoughlin games in their possession,
but they might be able to attest to the die-cuts being present in a game. If Mark Cooper, who's owned all or almost all of
the McLoughlin baseball games at one time or another, is still a member, he might be able to say whether he remembers
the die-cuts being part of a game in his now-dispersed collection.
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