Gotta love the bowler hat ... and the kid as the mascot! The kid actually makes an appearance on an Old Judge card with Buck Ewing (player in the bottom left of the upper pic.)
Jim "Orator" O'Rourke, George "Piano Legs" Gore, and my favorite guy from all of these, the fellow in the bottom right. A player that is oftentimes overlooked and should be given much more credit. Our first ever Home Run King, Roger Connor.
For those of you who don't know who he is, let me introduce you to him!
In addition to the five rounds that highlight four players each, the 1889 Goodwin A35 Round Album also features four separate rounds featuring one player each. Cap Anson, King Kelly, Charles Comiskey and John Ward. The level of detail is astounding on them.
Charles Comiskey - best known for his time as the owner of the White Sox during the Black Sox scandal (and Comiskey Park being named after him) was also a good ball player, and a key person in forming the American League. Check out the book "Turning the Black Sox White" - great book and it talks a lot about him! Pictured below is his 1889 A35 Goodwin Round along with his 1888 Allen & Ginter card. (It says 1887 on the flip, but is widely considered an 1888 issue.)
John Montgomery Ward was another superstar at the time, and the lone player to get a solo Round in this set from the World Champion Giants. Pictured below is his 1889 A35 Goodwin Round with his 1888 Allen & Ginter card.
As a way to differentiate Anson and Kelly from the others, I did separate artwork for them, as a direct callback to what Goodwin did for them on their 1888 N162 Goodwin cards. The artist painted a sunset background for Anson to show that he was in the sunset of his career, and menacing clouds as a background for Kelly, because of his stormy personality. That is where I drew my inspiration from.
Here is the Anson shown with his 1888 N162 Goodwin (note the sunset) and 1888 N28 Allen & Ginter:
Here is the King Kelly displayed with his 1888 N162 Goodwin (note the stormy weather), 1887 N172 Old Judge Portrait and 1888 N28 Allen & Ginter:
Even the advertisement got the custom treatment! Why not, right? It is beautiful full color lithography showing Old Judge, Dog's Head and Gypsy Queen. What's not to love?
The "covers" of the 1889 Goodwin A35 Round Album look like a baseball on the outside, but the artwork on the insides of them are much more interesting. The two mascot pieces were by far the worst conditioned pieces on the bunch, though the artwork remained largely unharmed. (Thankfully, these don't feature players!)
Yes, I did customize the two mascots. The middle piece above was on the reverse of the full color ad.
I fell head over heels in love with the Old Judge and Dog's Head mascots. They are amazing, and I had never seen them before! I scanned them in, cleaned them up, and incorporated my own artwork so I could use them as the backs. Think of them as huge, jumbo A&G...err...Goodwin mini backs.
Here are the final back pieces, printed directly on 1/8" acrylic.
... continued ....