[JJ McGraw]

Hi All......I need some help figuring out what these are. Today I recd a copy of the wonderful book "The Photographic Baseball Cards of Goodwin and Co." by Miller, Gonsowski and Masson. As I start to look throught this magnificent book, the images of two NY Met players catch my eye...they look "familiar" to me.
Recently, I'm moving and redoing the baseball room (new wood floors,etc) and I'm making it more heavily Giants and pre WW1 baseball. In my collection of NY Giants images I have a few 19th century pieces. Two (or so I was told when I bought them years ago) were cabinet cards measuring 4 1/8 x 6 1/2 inches, with nice gold borders taken by J. Wood Photo (Studio) at 208 Bowery in NY.
Again, the seller told me they were images of NY Giants from 1886. I knew they were on the same team with the same "spotted ties" round their necks. Someone, in pencil years ago, had written each man's name.

One he wrote: E. E. Foster
The other: E. L. Cushman

So the years past, they were displayed with the Giants and all was great.(this was ahead of the internet)

Back to the book today. So on page 24 it shows the subset of the Script Series called "Spotted Ties" and there are my "Giants".......

E.L. Cushman (Ed)
E. F. Foster (Elmer Ellsworth)

I then proceed to look them up on the internet.

Cushman was a pitcher who played for the :
Buffalo Bisons(1883)
Mil Brewers(1884)
Phil Athletics(1885)
NY Metropolitans(Time frame of image 1885-1887)
Toledo Maumees(1890)

Foster actually did play for the Giants along with the Mets and the Colts from 1886-1891 as second baseman and centerfielder. But again, the image I have is of him as a Met.

So the question is...are these the original studio portraits of these cards on page 24? They obviously are not baseball cards of any type as they have no advertizing on them whatsoever.

I guess the guy who sold them to me all those years ago really had no idea what they really were...and that is no slight against him. Now with such great research books out there and the internet it is a lot easier to ID things etc.

So, any help on these would be very much appreciated. I love anything baseball pre-WWI and one of them did play for the Giants so it is all good. Thanks in advance, Mike