[Runscott]

Thanks all, for your comments and recommendations. After discovering that gold leaf letterpress would be cost-prohibitive (or impossible), I was lucky enough to find this 'Johnson vs Jeffries' huge cabinet photo that has hand-lettering, although much more ornate than I did on this one. Curiously, someone with another one, also hand-lettered, contacted me and sent a nice scan - I used those two examples, along with calligraphy examples on the web, to come up with 'my own' style. I will continue to practice and hopefully be able to use this technique to create additional custom mats for vintage team photos where some of the players have been id'd - place the custom mat over the original, as done here. I already have a few additional candidates, and in those the mats are also in very bad shape.

My 'Johnson vs Jeffries' cabinet uses white lettering over a black mat. If anyone decides to try this, the white ink I found is almost impossible to use - you have to go over it at least twice, as it soaks into the mat. And for gold, the only pens that worked were expensive 'gold leafing' pens that are very wide, or Sharpie gold paint pens. All the rest ends up just being dirty yellow on dark mats.

Off to the framer - here are the stitched-together scans.

The framer was adamant about the dark mat - said that, while you can't read it as well, your attention is drawn to the photo, whereas with the light mat, attention is drawn to the lettering. Should have it Monday - very excited and getting the 1956 Mantle/Berra ball piece ready for her to complete.