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Posted By: David

Harper's Woodcuts (to be more accrate they are wood-engravings, which is a form of woodcut) were pictures in the pages of the Harper's Weekly, an illustrated magazines. They were not premiums or suppliments, but printed as part of magazine, and are often surrounded by other pics and or have text on the back. However, as these prints were handmade (it often took a couple of weeks to make the printing plate, as the design was carved by handheld tools), they are considered significant-- and treated as a different animal than a modern newspaper or magazine picture. Back in those days, they didn't have the modern commercial printing methods that would photographically reproduce a sketch or photo, so the pictures in newspapers and on trading cards were handmade by professional craftsmen.

I don't have a copy of the the Smolin Auction catalog, so I don't know which Harper's are being offered. But if you post which ones they are, I can comment better.

If you've never owned a Harper's, Lelie's Illustrated or similar baseball woodcut, they are tremendous display pieces. The largest ones, which covered two pages of the magzine, are the size of a small poster.