c1873 Harvard Football Club Membership Certificate - Did anyone score this?

[CarltonHendricks]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HISTORIC-MUS...p2047675.l2557
Did anyone here get this membership certificate...or know who did?...

[Leon]

That is a cool piece. That is about the oldest Football memorabilia I think I have seen (I am sure there is older stuff, I just don't remember seeing it).

[scooter729]

Wow, that is most impressive!

I've worked at Harvard for many years now, and have collected early Harvard football and baseball memorabilia, and don't remember seeing anything quite that early. (I have an 1883 football team picture as my earliest.) Harvard does own some pieces from that era in its collections which I have seen, but I don't remember any hitting the market.

In the "H Book of Harvard Athletics" from 1922, Morton Henry Price (Class of 1875) - the gentleman who signed this document - actually authored the section on the early history of Harvard football. I'm skimming it right now, and it has some fantastic information on its roots from rugby in the mid-1800s, how the brutality of the game caused it to be abolished in 1860, and eventually the founding of the HUFBC in December 1872.

That means this document was from the second year of Harvard football. Wow.

[spec]

Morton Prince was the son of Frederick O. Prince, mayor of Boston, and the brother of Charles A. Prince, president of the Boston American Association champion baseball club of 1891. He died Aug. 31, 1929.
B.ob Richa.rdson