Yes
 

Eyes, hair, lips, ears, and nose all look the same. His face is more rounded, but a man's appearance can change within a one year period. He's certainly not fat in the auction photo, but he's also not skinny like in the comparison photo.

Edited to say: Especially during the off-season. The Babe typically packed on a few too.

I got the Mayor's name, it's Richard E. Allen (1904-07) and I found an online article detailing him:

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/georgiabo...fs/gb0030d.pdf

Given that the scan is not very sharp, I can see no feature mismatch with respect to Cobb.

While I agree with you for the most part, I've seen the undivided back on later postcards. I know that the USPS allowed the divided back in March 1907 but some postcards were printed after that date with an undivided back. People would sometimes draw their own line to separate the address from the correspondence, etc. after this date.

This is just a technicality and not meant to correct you but to leave open the possibility that this could be a later postcard, though I don't think it is in this case because of the "This Side for Address" line.

Of course, the reverse is true - that you wouldn't see a divided back before March 1907. So, for me, I use it as a guide and not a fast rule when I see an undivided back.

Very rough comparison, ears, eyes & chin all align.

http://i.imgur.com/j5WEM.jpg

This is a photo of the mayor just after he was elected in July 1903.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-b...5%252520PM.jpg

A little more digging and it turns out the watch was presented to Cobb by John R. Burke.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1...0%252520PM.jpg

One thing seems certain, the watch was not "donated" by this individual but instead by the team's fans, maybe "presented" by this individual but that's not what the seller's description states.

Now, we have to determine who John Burke was.............

A couple of people made the point that the face looks more rounded than other young photos of Cobb. I agree, it does. The reason is that this is a photo taken of the postcard from an angle well below the subject - the camera was clearly not parallel to the plane of the postcard. This causes significant spatial distortion. In this case the vertical dimension of the face appears shortened while the horizontal dimension remains relatively accurate. That makes his face appear more round.

I love this thread! I went from not believing the picture was Cobb to thinking the image is Cobb. It would take some more evidence for me to believe that Cobb was 17 at the time of this picture though.

i think it looks like him. This is a 1907-1909 Tiger Team photo, Cobb on middle row on right side.

From antiques roadshow (not a closeup though):

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/201005T14.html

Looks like the auction was ended, off ebay sale?

Obviously him to me, how about we do another poll now that we have more evidence?

That's a 1909 M101-2 Sporting News Supplement with the top and bottom either obscured or cut off. $5,000 is not a very accurate appraised value.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-M101-2-...-/400067548284

yes, this has been a great thread! With some of the recent points made, as well as more comparison photos, and the fact that it's also a post card, I am also willing to admit I was wrong -- that very well may be Mr. Cobb. :cool:

I bought the postcard. Apparently this originally came from the estate of the other man pictured -- George Parquette. He owned Parquette Jewelry in Augusta and was the one who supplied the gold watch that was presented to Cobb on August 25th, 1905.

http://photos.imageevent.com/bicem/o...%20Augusta.jpg

Anyway, thought it was a neat piece of history so I made the seller an offer and he accepted.

Was the "Ty Cobb at 17" written by the seller or was it on the card when they found it? Nice item btw.

Very nice pickup! Especially being a postcard, now you can get it slabbed and the value should increase to at least what you paid, probably more.

Congrats on picking up a special card.

already on there, but I think whoever wrote that was wrong as I believe Cobb was actually 18 when the photo was taken.