1910 Turkey Red Cigarette Silk help

[Ribbens]

I am trying to identify this Turkey Red Cigarette silk of Frank "Home Run" Baker. What is the year and is this a variation of color?

[rhettyeakley]

1911 S74 "Colored" Silks. They came in multiple colors (none of which command a premium from my experience). The colored silks were produced by Turkey Red and Old Mill Cigarettes.

[Ribbens]

Thanks, the design of this silk is different than what I see in my catalog. The bats on the side of the player doesn't match. What do you think is the value of this ?

[BobC]

The images on the S74 silks are the exact same ones on the T205 gold bordered cards, and the end panels on the T202 triple folder cards. The images/borders around the players pictured on those cards was not identical for all the players. Some player's images were imposed over an image of an infield with the bats, balls, gloves, etc. framing the bottom border of their image. Others just had a plain, solid background on their cards with no infield and equipment shown. Each S74 image was unique to that player and there were no variations on the design of each player's silk. If you were looking to see if you had some type of rare variation for your Baker silk, the answer is no. As an earlier poster said, the S74-2 colored version silks came printed on various colors of material, with no apparent premium associated with any one particular color. The actual printing itself was done in one of three different colors, blue, brown or a rust colored ink. Also, unlike the S74-1 white silks that came with a paper advertisement on the back of the silks, these S74-2 colored silks came with no paper backing but, instead at the very top and bottom of the silk had the tobacco brand and factory number imprinted in the same color ink as the rest of the image.

As for your question about value, to command top prices for S74-2 colored silks you would want the silk itself to be clean, well centered and with no fraying at the top or bottom so that the tobacco brand and factory number are clearly shown. The image you included is a little small and hard to see all the details of the silk. The bottom shows some significant fraying and loss of material. The top edge appears to have been cropped out of the scan, so you can't really tell what condition that is in. The centering isn't the best and again, it is hard to tell from the scan but, there appears to be some staining on the silk. Creases or folds don't really impact the value of S74-2 colored silks in my opinion as they are a satin material that can easily be ironed perfectly flat. All told, your silk in the condition it is in would likely be in the $25-$50 range at best, in my opinion. A better, complete scan would help. And although Baker is a HOFer, his colored version silk is not especially rare or hard to find, again, in my opinion.

Bob C

[edhans]

+1 to most of what Bob and Rhett said. Not only do they come in multiple colors, they come in several shades of each color. The basic colors are red, pink, orange, gold, blue, green, tan (your copy), purple and ivory, again with a multitude of shade variations. While it's largely true that colors command little premium, there are distinct levels of scarcity. Blue and green are the most common; Orange, red and purple the most difficult, with the rest falling in the middle. Even though it's been accepted for years that the colored silks were issued without backs, I'm not entirely convinced. I have seen and owned a few examples with blank cardboard backs. These appear period to me and I don't know why back would be added at a later date. Assuming your Baker has complete captions top and bottom, it's value would be north of $100, depending on soiling, fraying and other considerations mentioned above.

[1880nonsports]

I believe that at some point there was a heavy paper sheet inserted between each large uncut sheet to facilitate cutting and/or keep the subsequently cut silks separate and "manageable". While I don't recall ever seeing examples in the S74-2 (or in the NS smaller examples) - I own some packaged/produced/distributed in such a manner and retaining the "backing" for 5/6 large silk series. I sold two such superior examples from the lg. BB series around 2000. Wonder if that's the backing you're referring to - I would believe any sheets issued contemporaneously to my examples whatever the individual size MIGHT be similarly produced. As a counter inference however - I have a complete "as issued" set of mint small indian silks and they were sent without such a "backing".
I have a complete set of the similar colored presidents (not a political statement obviously!) which are relatively plentiful and issued at the same time - studied them pretty closely in the past and no evidence of a backing. Similar to both smaller BB issues are a pair of actress sets that were offered in two series - one "wit" and one without (if you're from Jersey you can get away with that). The ones with backing are distinct and I've handled over 1000 of the colored ones - never any evidence of a backing. At one time hobby friend David Grimes (RIP) had a few hundred S74-2's and none were so backed. Hard enough to figure out what happened last week in my own house let alone over 100 years ago.
If by the following statement "I have seen and owned a few examples with blank cardboard backs" you mean they were actually GLUED (or show evidence of it) in the same manner as the S74-1's I would be surprised but still inclined to come up with an alternate reason
I have a fair amount of exposure and experience with silk issues although admittedly not very familiar with the vagaries of the baseball series. I have not seen or encountered any evidence of any other series aside from the S74-1 in any of the other small to medium silk issues having such a backing (exception to the actresses).
Certainly at this point in the ongoing foraging of the scrapbooks that detail past lives which might include these little swatches of ephemera - examples would have been unearthed with the backing - hard to believe otherwise.
Of course now I'm going to have to figure out which of the two sets were issued first - as a pure guess it would be the backed set came first and proved to be too expensive or convoluted to produce. Pure conjecture - the BB collector is likely saying to themselves Henry is an idiot because everyone knows the colored set was issued first. So be it.
If you or anyone else have any such example I'd love to see it so I can spend some time thinking it through again. I have no life so it would be a blessing.....

No guarantees whether written or implied...........

[edhans]

Thsnks for your input, Henry. Not insisting on my theory by any means. I still have three of the backed silks. I'll try to get scans up later.

[andybecker]

15-20 years ago, I had an opportunity to buy a fresh group of s74-2s from a non-collector who found them in a deceased family member's drawer. he brought them to me in a brown paper lunch bag, the bag was literally half full. each and every silk was folded in half down the middle horizontally. none had any evidence of paper backing, glued or not.
these were dead mint less the fold, they had to be from to the original owner.

the weird thing, to me, was all were s74-2...and, I think, there were just too many to have come from the same year.....so, unless it was regional, where were the s74-1's?

to answer the OP, your silk is from 1910 and is worth around $100 if the top boarder is there, I cant see it in the scan.

[Ribbens]

Thanks very much for everyone's expert information on this item. I won it at auction for 42.00. I will post more images after I get it.