harpers question

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I just scored my first Harpers item, a full magazine with a baseball engraving in it. Here is what I am wondering: I would like to display the item in some way but my instinct tells me not to cut up the magazine to do it. Any suggestions besides a laser copy?

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Posted By: Julie

ever offered me a WHOLE MAGAZINE! In short, I don't know what I'd do. I admit to enjoying the backs of the engravings almost as much as the front (in fact, before I put them in mylar and acid=-free board, I often xerox the back and attach it to the back of the board.

Gee, a whole magazine...

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

However, I have never tried to list them on eBay, b/c I have no digital camera and my scanner is too small. Also, I don't have them on display b/c of their size. I guess on of the big diploma frames would work however.

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Posted By: hankron

Adam, buy one that has already been cut from the magazine. I would leave your publication alone, as it's rarer that way ... There is an 1880s Harper's with a great Buck Ewing in catcher's gear on the cover.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Thanks for your input. Since it is more valuable than I thought, I will not damage the whole magazine. I am doing my entire office (not just my waiting room) in baseball; that is what I bought it for. If I can get a clean enough scan I will print it out and frame the print instead.

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Posted By: Reid Bruce

Adam,

Why not frame the entire thing!!! I had an old newspaper framed with the paper opened to the page that i wanted. It was framed with the paper held in a slightly recessed archival foam cutout. That way, no tape was needed. If it is from an original Harpers and not the reprints, you should have no problem framing it that way or just with the individual sheet opened vertically. It makes for an interesting display.

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Posted By: hankron

Reid may be correct. If it is a partial page woodcut, it may be more interesting to have the whole page displayed anyway.

Adam, the woodcuts are more often than not found cut out of the magazine and these cutout pictures do have value. So, while it is rarer to have the entire magazine, it is not considered a mortal sin within the genre to remove a picture. If you were to cut it out for display on a wall, you would not be the first.

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Posted By: hankron

The pictures in 1800s Harper's Weeklies and similar magazines are popular and significant to collectors as they are original prints. The pictures were printed directly from handmade printing plates. The printing plate was made by a full time craftsman who carved or cut the design into a block of wood using hand held tools-- the same way Rembrandt or Pablo Picasso would have done it. If you or your kid ever made a linoleum cut in art class (carving into a piece of linoleum, adding ink then making a print), that is basically how a woodcut is made. Though wood is obviously a tad harder than linoleum. It sometimes took a couple of weeks to make a single printing plate. Though a print was usually done with the colaboration of several people (artist, carver), as opposed to a single famous artist, a Harper's print of the 1869 Cincinnati Reds or 1880s Buck Ewing is as much an original print as the Picasso hanging in a museum .... In fact, one of the Civil War artists who worked for Harper's was a then unknown painter named Homer Winslow.

This is why Harper's Woodcuts are considered more than just newspaper pictures like you might cut out of today's sports section.

Visit the below web page if you wish to get some background on handmade 'relief printing' which is basic class of printing that includes woodcuts, wood-engraving (type of woodcut used to make later Harper's woodcuts) and linoleum printing. Notice the images of a woodcut and a Picasso linoleum cut you can see exactly how the wood or linoleum was carved out. You or your kid can also make a simple relief print in your kitchen with a potato (the pictures show me making one in my kitchen).

http://www.cycleback.com/printsexamination/ten.html

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I used to frame while I was in college to pay the bills, so I am aware of how I could potentially shadowbox the item. I was thinking more in terms of conventional framing, though, since I did not want to spend the bucks on a shadowbox with archival materials.

David, I agree, the images are really striking in those old mags. There are a bunch of really nice non-sport images in the issue too, including political ones. I do not usually collect non-card items but I saw the image and knew it was something special to have, so I bought it.

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Posted By: Scott

If anyone is interested in these, at resonable prices, let me know via email and I'll set you up with somone who deals in Harpers woodcuts.

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Posted By: Andy Baran

Does this person have New York Clipper Woodcuts as well?

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

leather bound editions by year containing ALL Harpers Magazines for that particular year! These are not that expensive either - only a few hundred bucks. I still wish I would have bought a couple last winter that I passed on which I knew had some nice BB woodcuts in them. I haven't searched for these in a while, but they might have went up in price by now - just do a harpers weekly search on eBay in all catagories and you might find one!

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Posted By: warshawlaw

It is a lot bigger than I thought--more like newspaper sized.

The cover is detached from the mag and the sheet with the baseball image is unbound but intact, so I guess there is no issue with regard to separating the image bearing sheet from the whole publication.

It is one heck of an engraving. Dated June 27, 1874, it shows the Boston champions and includes O'Rourke, Spaulding, both Wrights, McVey and several other players in bib unis with old time equipment scattered around. It says the engraving is based on a photo by J.W. Black. The text story on the next page discussed the upcoming trip to England by the Boston and Philadelphia teams, which Spaulding organized.

Well worth the $50 I paid, I think...and my oldest baseball collectible. I suspect it will end up sandwiched between two pieces of UV coated plexi to preserve it.

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Posted By: Reid Bruce

Adam,

I just love that image. The first time I saw that particular piece was in London about six years ago. The British have a whole cottage industry of taking turn of the century and earlier newspaper drawings and colorizing them by hand with watercolors. (This one was from the London Times I believe). Its not great from a preservation "in situ" standpoint, but it makes for a great display piece. In fact, its hanging on the wall of my law office right now. (How's that for coincidence).

Reid

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Adam, I think you learned why the Harper's (and Leslie's, a similar magazine) woodcuts are considered undervalued by those who know them in person. Consider that there are similar (thought often smaller) prints showing King Kelly, Cap Anson, Billy Sunday, Chas. Comiskey (as player), Buck Ewing, James Creighton, etc.

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Posted By: Julie

The last one is the one referred to above, with O'Rourke, the Wrights and Spaulding--but sincve I MOVED it, it got all liney. My scanner doesn't like enlarging, reducing or moving ANYTHING. Very particular.

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Posted By: Rick McQuillan

Hello, The Vintage & Classic Baseball Collector's Issue #14 has a good article on Harper's woodcuts. Rick

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

I suppose that none of the wooden plates used to make these woodcuts have survived. Boy, it sure would be nice to have one of those.

I wonder how much wear the wooden plates suffered in printing the copies which were necessary then. Wood, although more durable than linoleum, is not a very strong material. Then again, some types of wood are surprising.