Quote:
Originally Posted by Deertick
Thanks Scott. I find this facinating,
Why were emergency tickets issued?
Emergency tickets (aka E-tickets) are sold if an event is unscheduled, or if additional tickets were required above and beyond the original amount that was printed prior to the season starting. Season ticket holders received a small number of E-tickets with their other pre-printed tickets at the beginning of the season for games that were unscheduled.
Think about it, this is the Great Depression Era. Baseball teams were not drawing attendances like 2013. Many teams were struggling financially. Computer generated ticket technology didn't yet exist. A team would pay a contracted ticket company to print a certain designated number of tickets for each game. If the game had poor attendance, the ticket stock is wasted and was thrown away (money wasted). In order to not waste money on ticket printing costs, a team would use E-tickets. E-tickets were a generic ticket with no printed date. Also it should be noted that, if a rain out occurs earlier in the season, a make up day or game may have had to be scheduled later on in the year. E-tickets would need to be used for events such as these if a game was not made up for in a double header.
Was it only for the upper deck?
No, these seats could be sold for anywhere in the stadium where they did not already have an assigned seat. Every stadium has "reserved" sections of seats with seat numbers and "unreserved" section where no seat numbers are issues. Your ticket would gain you entrance to this section and then it became first come, first serve. Bleacher sections and G/A (General Admission) are some examples of this.
How would they keep track of seats so there were no duplicates sold? These weren't SRO, or lawn, or even GA. These were section/ row/ seat. 
If you had tickets to an event that was cancelled or postponed it would be my assumption that your original ticket would be brought along to direct you to the correct seat. If you were in the Bleacher unreserved section, you would go back to the bleacher section. If additional seats (circus seats) were added to the lower level like in the 1934 Yankees/ Babe Ruth 700 HR series at DET, I have no idea. I wasn't a fly on the wall in 1934! 
And can anyone answer WHY they were date stamped?
They were date stamped instead of printed for reasons that I explained in the first answer.
Early purchase can be a possible explanation.
Not that I am aware of
Has anyone found any others beyond the 2009 eBay lot. From any date beside the day before this ticket?
Not me, but I haven't really looked for it.
Am I being too much of a PITA?  |
No worries, this is all about learning and having fun with your hobby. 
BTW, I would also like to mention a couple of other specific historic baseball games that Emergency tickets were used (both were unscheduled games):
1) Denny McLain's 31st win in 1968 at DET. McLain also served up Mickey Mantles 2nd to last career HR in this game. No printed or stamped date on this ticket at all.
2) HOF Wade Boggs' career ML debut at CWS. No printed or stamped date on this ticket.
Unless you knew what you were looking for, you would never know these tickets if you saw them.
It should be noted that many of my answers come from knowing friends that worked in baseball ticket offices for many years, FWIW...