Never mind not the St. Louis team I thought it was...

[pencil1974]

Anyone want to take a crack at who these gents might be.

[packs]

I saw that piece too. Do you think it's an original photograph? I thought it looked more like a piece of paper fixed to a mount, as though it came from a guide.

[barrysloate]

None of the faces jump out at me, and I'm not sure these are St. Louis Browns players.

[pencil1974]

What other St. Louis team would it be? It looks a lot like the Browns uniforms from the 1888 composite photos but you never know. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I don't know yet if its legit, I'm supposed to get it today or tomorrow but was writing up the SGC submission on a bunch of cards I'm sending in and was going to include if it was legit. If not back to the seller it goes.

[ramram]

It is possibly a the St. Louis newspaper team. Many of the big city's newspapers had teams and their photos show up now and then. Can be very deceiving.

Rob M.

[prewarsports]

I saw it as well and my first thought was that it was not an authentic item but please let us know when you get it.

[JeremyW]

I saw that photo on Ebay & the seller said the photo was marked St. Louis, Michigan. I didn't realize that there was such a place, but I would guess that he/she was correct.

[pencil1974]

Originally Posted by prewarsports

I saw it as well and my first thought was that it was not an authentic item but please let us know when you get it.

I will do that. I asked a respected member and expert in this area to take a look and he had the same issues as we did but mentioned that it was a reputable dealer so he thought it may actually be OK. But did say it looked to be late 1890's with the embossed cabinet style. It will be pretty clear once I can get a loop to it and do a black light test on it as well.

As for the Newspaper team I didn't know that but did look on the net after it was mentioned to see if there was any notes talking about a St. Louis Newspaper baseball team. Nothing on that but some other interesting fact about St. Louis did come up. At least its a learning experience.

[pencil1974]

Originally Posted by JeremyW

I saw that photo on Ebay & the seller said the photo was marked St. Louis, Michigan. I didn't realize that there was such a place, but I would guess that he/she was correct.

I saw that as well but its on the cabinet part, what is strange to me though is that the photographer Sperry is out of Washington and St. Louis Michigan is a such a small place with no baseball history what so ever. I looked up their archives and then don't mention anything on baseball but they were happy to get electric in the early 1900's.

[pencil1974]

On a side note this would be a lot easier if people would have kept a better history of things with photos so thinking ahead 130 years people like us could figure things out much easier on the internet. Selfish is what I call it.

[khkco4bls]

the heck with the photo I want the uniforms

[pencil1974]

I'm a fan of all the 19th century uni's they are just very regal for sure! And probably damn hot in the summer!!

[pencil1974]

Finally got the photo today. Card is very much authentic, photo is super crisp. The emboss on the bottom does says:

Sperry Extra Premium St. Louis Mich.

A little research and the only photographer named Sperry lived in Oregon. I've been not able to find one cabinet photo of any kind for St. Louis Michigan in the 19th century. The size of St. Louis Michigan too is really small, it had only 4000 people living in the 3.5 mile square town. Does it really make sense that they had a baseball team with what looks like pretty nice uniforms for that time. Maybe so I guess but call me a little skeptical on that one.

Any way thought you guys might like to know.

[khkco4bls]

baseball was everywhere at that point

[packs]

Is it an original photograph? Or is it a print mounted to a cabinet? It doesn't look like your typical first generation photo. It looks more like a mounted Reach-type photo to me. But I can't tell.

[pencil1974]

Here are a couple of photos that I took. One black light and one to show the glare that light reflects off the photo.

[pencil1974]

Originally Posted by packs

Is it an original photograph? Or is it a print mounted to a cabinet? It doesn't look like your typical first generation photo. It looks more like a mounted Reach-type photo to me. But I can't tell.

Photo mounted.

[pencil1974]

Originally Posted by khkco4bls

baseball was everywhere at that point

Maybe they had a great tailor in town.

[ramram]

Definitely looks to be the real thing. Unfortunately, it must be a St. Louis, Michigan team. Great photo though and great uniforms.

Rob M.

[Butch7999]

Small didn't necessarily mean "poor." Mineral springs in the immediate area evidently made St Louis
a popular late-19th-century travel destination as a spa and resort, similar to French Lick, Indiana not too much later.

[pencil1974]

Well that sucks, I guess it will be headed back to eBay soon then. Oh well I'll keep a looking for the real pro team stuff. Cool era though.

[slidekellyslide]

A population of 4000 is a metropolis in that time period, and that's a pretty sweet photo no matter where it came from.

[pencil1974]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

A population of 4000 is a metropolis in that time period, and that's a pretty sweet photo no matter where it came from.

That was the population in 2000 they had no stats for 1890's first settler was 1850 something.

[slidekellyslide]

My bad. The population is much higher now, it nearly doubled in 10 years...the 2010 census has them at almost 7,500. Wonder what caused that?

[Tim Zwick]

Dan - There were both Level I and Level IV prisons built in the 1990's in St. Louis. One has at least 2400 inmates and the other not quite as many. I assume their data was not included in the 2000 census but was in 2010.

There are only about 350 students in the Grade 9-12 High School in town. The actual population is probably more in the 2500-3000 range. They were in the same conference as my high school back when I played in the 70's.

Former Tiger Jim "Grand Slam" Northrup graduated from St. Louis High. He then attended nearby Alma College where he was a small college All-American QB. I believe he earned 15 varsity letters before signing with Detroit in 1960.

Brad - Please let me know when you list this item on Ebay.

[vintagesportscollector]

That's interesting. I had not heard of Alma college before, but this is the second time I have seen it this week. I have started to collect the T51 Murad College series and got the Alma card - there are many small schools in the series, and many of them are hunting scenes. Alma is interesting in that it depicts someone shooting a moose in the face, point blank.

alma.jpg

[pencil1974]

A great hunter indeed! Problem is what if he missed?