Team Stationary

[Joe_G.]

I enjoy collecting cards as much as the next guy but find memorabilia particularly fascinating. My passion for 19th Century Detroit baseball has kept me on the straight and narrow for years, focused on only those items. Some of my favorite memorabilia items include a collection of letters that originate from two different collections, the Rhys Yeakley collection of Robert Allen letters and more recently Bryan Dec's small collection of letters to Bill Watkins. Most of the Bill Watkins letters date to mid 1885 when he took over as manager of the Detroit Wolverines (when Detroit purchased the Western League Indianapolis Hoosiers). The Bob Allen letters date to late 1888 and 1889, after the NL team disbanded. These letters chronicle a failed attempt to secure Bob Allen's talents for Detroit's new minor league team by the same name (the International Association Detroit Wolverines). Below, I've attached examples of team stationary from four different years, all written by Robert Leadley who served as team secretary, treasurer, and/or manager (depending on date).

Four years down, six to go . Kind of like collecting Old Judges, you'll never finish the set/subset. I'll probably be looking for awhile as I'm not aware of any letters dating to a year not shown below.

The first three examples represent stationary for the National League Detroit Wolverines and the last being for the International Association Detroit Wolverines. Note that Robert Leadley utilized some of the NL stationary in late 1888, after the NL team disbanded, on correspondences relating to the new minor league team. Leadley would finish 1888 as the NL team's manager and then manage the IA team as well.

Please share some of your team stationary.

[Lordstan]

1945 NY Giants


1951 NY Giants


1957 NY Giants


1953 or so Boston Braves


1953 or so Brooklyn Dodgers

[whitehse]

Some stationary I have stashed away

[Jay Wolt]

Here's a neat 1942 KC Monarchs w/ a proposal to rent Briggs Stadium and show off Satchel Paige to make some money during the war.

[BrockJacob]

Shameless plug...
I have this for sell on ebay right now
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...STRK:MESELX:IT

[David Atkatz]

Two very early examples of NY Yankee (Highlander) stationary:

[jacksons]

Beautiful, David!

And wth does "promulgated" mean?

[Tedw9]

Awesome pics guys!

Here are a couple I have.

[vintagesportflips]

Here are a couple of my earlier Philadelphia Eagles letterheads.
The first is the first page of a 3 page letter from Bert Bell to his wife. I believe this undated letter dates to about 1935 or 1936, because it was at that time period Bell had a falling out with his friend and GM/coach Lud Wray, and Bell crossed out Wray's name on the letterhead.
The second is a 1944 letterhead.

[ksfarmboy]

Here's a couple and I have a few more.

[murphusa]

back in the 80's I came across a folder that had 20 some peices of 1940's 50's St Louis Cards stationary.

I took them and typed on them a note saying

To a great Cards fan, Happy Birthday, or Merry Christmas etc and then topped it off with

Best Wishes


Stan Musial

Stan was doing one of the early Delco Sports card show and I got him to sign all of them for about $6 each.

Over the next few years I sent them out to friends as Birthday gifts.

Saved a few for myself

[slidekellyslide]

Lincoln Chiefs




Frankford Yellow Jackets

[insidethewrapper]

Here's Chicago Ball Club from Nov 1880 filled out by William Thompson President of Detroit Club to N.E. Young, Sec. of Nat. League.
Back states "Detroit BBC Application for League Alliance Membership" Rec Nov 20,1880.

[Oldtix]

[slidekellyslide]

Did somebody mention envelopes?

Here's my favorite:

[Rob D.]

Pretty good content from Peckinpaugh.

[GoldenAge50s]

Back in the 1940's & '50's I grew up in WNY State in the "hotbed" of the Class D PONY Lg of Professional Baseball (Pennsylvania, Ontario Canada, New York)

In fact, my hometown of Wellsville had the designation as being the SMALLEST city/town in the US to have & support a professional team. Nearby were teams from Olean, Jamestown, Corning, etc & about 20 miles from me were the Hornell Dodgers (Maury Wills played there a couple yrs before).

Needless to say I attended games & followed those teams for many yrs. Many future ML players got their 1st taste of pro ball in those little towns in Class D, the lowest rung on the pro ladder--like A ball today.

I'm always looking for something from Wellsville to add to my collection, but not very much at all is ever listed. The other day I saw a BIN for an item I thought was pretty neat and grabbed it.

Conrad Devlin was a 19 yr Outfielder in his 1st yr of Pro ball. He batted .326 in 113 games for Hornell and he also did something really BAD--he got kicked out of a game!

Here is the letter & env written to him from Vince McNamara, the Lg President from the Lg office in Buffalo about that ejection. I thought it was priceless--Hope you get a kick out of it!


A year later in 1955, after playing just 34 games, Mr Devlin was finished & done w/ baseball & never played professionally anywhere again.