Quote:
Originally Posted by prewarsports
Just for discussion sake, what makes these "cards". The issuer was the photographer which essentially just makes them photographs. They were not issued in conjunction with products (like 19th century card/photos) from anything I have seen and other sets of photographs do not get the same respect and classification. If they were 5x7 or 8X10 they would certainly just be a set of photos yet other series of photographs like those from the American League Service Bureau (which are actually numbered like cards) would fall into this same category. I know they are small and look like traditional baseball cards, but they clearly were developed on a full sheet with essentially no borders and trimmed down by the photographer.
At their base root, these are tiny "type 3" photographs developed in composite form and trimmed then given away by a photo studio in Sacramento. I have no skin in the game and am not trying to be controversial at all, just curious why these are "cards" and other sets of superior photographs (off their original negatives) from studios are not? I would be interested in others thoughts and I am in NO WAY downplaying anyone's cards or collections.
Rhys
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Rhys, although I have no evidence to say for sure but the size and nature of the cards would circumstantially indicate these were inserted in some sort of candy or gum product in California. The fact that they say Frederick Foto on front is just the photographer marking their images. Not all cards have the Frederick Foto on front (see Shore and Alexander in this thread). Those images may very well have been from a different source. The fact that we know these as Frederick Foto cards is only due to the fact we don’t know who actually “inserted” the cards into their product (that info is likely lost to time), had we been around in California in 1921 and seen who inserted them we would likely know them by a different name.
This isn’t unprecedented in the card world, for example we don’t 100% know who issued the 1913 Oakland Oaks team issue cards but the limited circumstantial evidence seems to indicate them being a Cardinet Candy Co issue, they likely faced pushback from the Zeenut makers (Collins Candy Co) as they had exclusive rights to PCL players images and the following season instead of making cards of hometown Oakland Oaks they made their more famous Texas Tommy issue featuring Major Leaguers from much further away from home.