The Athletic team card - any info
 

Hi All,
Here is another mystery card that I have been trying to find info about. It seems like a specialty card made by a men's shop in Philadelphia. Any insights would be appreciated. It is about 6 x 4.5" on pretty thin cardstock.
thanks,
Brian

Here is an example of the image by Vandyke from 1888. I have one like this, but this one is just one from the internet. The Vandyke cards are the size of a cabinet, but produced like a card, smooth and card stock, not a cabinet with a mount and photo.

I would guess your card is something made later, used for advertising.

thanks!

Could it be like a real-photo postcard copy of the original cabinet?

Here is my card from my Flickr page. It is not as high def as the one I posted above, although they could be the same card.

Lew Lipset has this card in his guide page 92-93. He describes the VanDyke card as "not a cabinet, but a mass produced photo."

That makes a lot of sense. I really think the printing is period, but it is clearly not the same as the cabinett-like card that has been posted. Any value in such a thing?

Very cool looking piece

See this link for more info.

http://www.threadsofourgame.com/1888...-philadelphia/

These guys did some newspaper research... "a newspaper report from this period (April 1888) stated promotional signs had been printed..."

Wilbert Robinson is on the image. Could he be related to the Robinson store owners? You could search newspaper archives to learn more about the store, when it existed etc.

that's really cool. Thanks for the article. I thin the Robinson's in the advert is likely a coincidence. The Robinson on the team is HOF manager Wilbert Robinson (not Wm...presumably William from the advertisement). Maybe a relative? I can't find any info on the Clothing store.

Honestly though, when I look closely at the photo, it looks like WM Robinson, doesn't it? Why would Wilbert get shortened to WM?

Is there any way to post high resolution pics of the front and back, the ones shown are pretty blurry.

It looks great and I hope it's authentic, but I am always a little skeptical of these kinds of pieces, from what I have seen before. It could be totally legit but hard to say without having it in hand. And, even then, it could be difficult.

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