Quote:
Originally Posted by wolf441
Just thinking out loud, so I apologize if there are easy answers to these questions...
Why is the Bozeman Bulger letter on New York Highlanders letterhead? He didn't work for the team, did he?
When was the Bulger letter first discovered, was it known back at the time, or in the decades after, or did it not come to light until more recently?
Given the number of different subjects in the set, there should have been almost 400 of these letters either delivered in person at the ball park or through the mail. Is there a reasonable explanation as to why this is the only one that has been discovered to date? I am operating under the assumption that permission would have to have been granted (based on the 1908 law) for any likeness to be sold, with not only cigarettes, but also gum, candy, bread, etc. That would require many more signed letters of permission across major and minor league players, across many different sets and they would have to be held on file at multiple different firms (American Tobacco, American Lithography, as well as various candy manufacturers, etc.). If it was just American Tobacco (or American Lithography), I guess they could have all been destroyed/thrown away at the same time. How likely is it that all of these signed letters would suffer the same fate across many different companies?
Adding on, based on a quick Google search
The letter was owned at one time by Barry Halper. Weren't there some items that Halper owned that were later discovered to have been forgeries? Is it possible for the envelope and letterhead to be real, but the actual content of the letter to be a fake? By that I mean, the envelope and they letter down to "Dear Neil," as genuine.
Are there any examples of Bulger's signature that can be compared to the letter?
Again, I am just thinking out loud and do not have any ax to grind here, no need to fire arrows at me  |
The Ball letter became known more recently; there was no 'real hobby' to know of it until the 1940's at all.
Permission was to the lithographer and not ATC, so other sets they did could have used these likenesses. Presumably some of the smaller sets by other companies simply ignored the law and flew under the radar.
The letters appear to have been from the lithographic companies that produced the ATC set, on behalf of American Lithographic and Brett Lithographic. They were presumably then given to the ATC, as ATC was the defendant in the Porter case dealing with his letter and not one of the lithographic companies.
Most of them would disappear together because they were probably filed together. Over 99.9% of internal documentation on these cards has disappeared, there is no wealth of paperwork. We have 1 partial ledger, 1 possibly full ledger, these two contracts, a handful of uncut panels and strips from non-baseball sets and... I think that is it on all the ATC sets production, development and printing.
I am a sceptic, but believe the Ball letter is genuine. I see no evidence for forgery, Halper wasn't a forger he got duped as a buyer on some game-used material. It lines up with other evidence that surfaced later; if it was a fraud from this time it likely would reference ATC more directly and not the lithographer, and a more compelling name than Neal Ball would be chosen for $$$.