Any info on this Piece of Baseball History?
 

Hey guys -

I recently purchased the remaining collection of a former White Sox baseball player from his relatives

The item that intrigues me and I have never seen another nor have any idea what to value it at - it is a 1931 Chicago White Sox photo album - this is leather embossed and includes the players name whos collection i bought on the front. Inside there are black and white individual photos of all the team members - and nearly all of them were signed by the teammates - including the hall of famers like luke appling, etc

Does anyone have any clue what something like this goes for? I also have a team signed ball from the same year - some field passes later in his career - his own personal scrapbook of his career - a game used hat from when he played a year or two with cleveland

I have never seen one of these albums before which totally seems to be team issued

Hi, welcome to Net54

1 - lets see pictures

2 - be careful with your posting practices, you just posted a virtually identical message four times.

Doug

sorry - i tried to submit the message but it kept giving me an internet error message

I can add some pictures of it to my photobucket and link that here until I learn how to attach pictures to the thread....

Posting pictures is very easy. use the manage attachments button below the box where you type messages, find the picture on your computer, upload it, then post the message.

Here are a few pictures - I thought I had Luke Appling, but he is on the team signed ball - there are probably about 15 pictures - all but 2 are signed

That is one sweet album cover.

Max

Thanks! I thought it was so cool - I have Bill's game used hat from when he played with the Indians as mentioned - his scrapbook is so cool too

If you guys are not familiar with Mr. Cissell its well worth a google search - I was amazed - he was touted widely as the next big thing - a combination of many of the greats, like hornsby, cobb, etc... Comiskey paid a kings ransom (most ever given for a players rights up to that time) and the guy literally had a few nice years, led the league in hitting for awhile one season, but never delivered on the promise - in his scrap book its so cool how he is quoted as saying how the white sox giving up so much for his rights was the biggest burden he ever had to bare - really cool how he felt such high expectations after comiskeys huge gamble on him - and said he had to be tossed into the lineup from day 1 because guys who people give up that much to get are not allowed an opportunity to be brought up and groomed slowly - just a fascinating story in all honesty

Nice album!
 

That Fonseca photo looks like the work of George Burke, who I think was official photographer for the White Sox at the time (I know he was for the Cubs, starting in 1929, but not sure exactly when he assumed the role for the White Sox as well). I thought I might have a match of it in my files, but didn't turn up anything. Any chance you could post pics of the other photos in the album? I'd be curious to scan through them for matches as well.

Also, I don't know if anyone has suggested it, but you should NOT remove the photos from the album. Keep the whole thing together as it is, especially with the cover having the team and Cissell's name on it. Even if it wasn't issued by the team, with that cover and having the provenance that it does makes it much more desirable than a generic album of signed photos would be.

Here are 18 of the 25 :)

Ok here are the rest of the 25 :) so 25 total - most are autographed as you can see - only a cpl that are not

pic of the studio marking :)

Great book. Can anyone tell me what they believe this is valued at?

Beautiful!
 

Beautiful signed album. Great signed photos! Congrats on this pickup!! :D

That is a beautiful album! I love the pictures! It's so cool that many of them are autographed....

Thanks guys! I really appreciate all the great comments

a user on here identified photos as looking like those of george burke- ironically the studio name RADIUM then matched the studio Burke worked for back in the era too!

I am guessing Burke put these together for each of the White Sox and Cubs players back in the day.... and I imagine Cissell then got his teammates to sign for him - which makes sense why his photo is one of the couple not signed

I saw a similar piece for the 1935 Cubs about 8 years ago. The album was a gift from Mr. Wrigley to each of the players and the last photo in the album was of Wrigley, also signed.

The album was from the same studio. I don't know if Rich Klein is reading this thread but he also looked through the album that night, I know we were very impressed and puzzled about a value.

Really amazing pieces, congratulations!

Heres a link to the Cubs in REA
http://robertedwardauctions.com/auction/2005/452.html

Welcome to the board
 

Nice album!

I hope you are going to leave it intact, but if you get the urge to cut it up, whatever you do, don't use one of those bayonets! ;)


Jantz

haha I should have moved them :) I was laying the bayonets out getting pictures taken - as I was going to list them on Ebay to get rid of

Definitely will keep the album together - everytime the white sox beat the twins Im tempted to sacrifice the album out of hatred but all the other times of the year i really enjoy it!