Early board games- major league baseball

[4scuda]

I got this lot of 9 games in today. I bought it to upgrade a couple games I already have and maybe add one or two to the collection. Does anyone know how many versions of the wooden case major league game there were. This one has 1916 team cards the other I have has the players cutout separately from team cards so don't know exact year but it has ruth and Gehrig.

[Butch7999]

Sweet lot, Mark. No idea (we're pretty sure no one could say with any accuracy) how many examples of Major League Base Ball Game
were manufactured, but it was in continuous production (with updated team rosters) from 1913 to around 1926. A lovely game --
not that hard to find for sale or at auction, but always in demand among collectors.

The Jackie Robinson Batter Up game is a tough acquisition, probably the one among the lot with the highest market value.

The one game in that array that really intrigues us is the World Series Parlor Baseball, which we think is something with which we're
embarrassingly totally unfamiliar. Can you post here, or e-mail us, some close-ups of the box, gameboard, and, if you have them,
the instructions or any playing pieces? We'd appreciate it enormously.

[4scuda]

This game has an endorsement by Bill Carrigan manager of the Red Sox

[4scuda]

Don't know why the pictures are rotated but here is a shot of the instruction sheet.

[Butch7999]

Ah! Big thanks, Mark. Turns out we're quite familiar with the game -- except for the box lid, which is a variation we've never seen before.
World's Series Parlor Baseball was previously (or maybe subsequently) published as World's Series Base Ball Game, with the same gameboard,
rules, scorecards, and endorsement sheet, but that slightly different title and a very different box lid design. There are also three versions
of the gameboard, one with nine spinners, and two variations of the "eight plus two"-spinner version you have.
Could we trouble you for just a better close-up of the lid alone? Don't worry if it shows up sideways, we can rotate it here. Major thanks again.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Mark that group is fantastic! Butch I know there are some International League teams included in the Major League Base Ball Game editions, are there any other minor leagues represented?

[Butch7999]

Hi Mike -- NL, AL, International League, and Federal League are the only sets we've seen.

[4scuda]

I don't know what league these teams are in, but these are minor league teams in my 1916 major league game.

[4scuda]

Box top from World Series

[Butch7999]

Thanks for the pic, Mark! We try to have an image of every component of every game for our records.

Those roster strips are all IL teams.

[nolemmings]

I jut saw where this same 1916 World Series parlor game is up for auction at Heritage with a component not previously discussed--the game piece. As you can see, there are two pieces offered as part of this game:
http://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-co...uction-120115#

The reason this struck me is that the game piece appears to be identical to what has been considered part of the px7 Domino Disk set. Here's mine:


This makes me wonder if the game piece has been erroneously included as part of px7 by collectors these many years or if instead it was appropriated after px7 expired so as to be used again. At first I thought it might just be happenstance that these two pieces were found with the game but if you magnify the instruction sheet graphics you'll see where the pieces--more of them actually--were to be used as part of the game.

[Butch7999]

Todd, thanks for the heads-up on this. That example now at Heritage, by the way, is from the collection of Mark Cooper,
who had e-mailed us, just a bit previous to your post, to let us know it was at auction.

To your question -- we had to get up to speed on this with some afternoon research, as we must admit we'd heretofore been
completely unaware of the PX7 domino set. There certainly is a resemblance between the PX7s and the game pieces from
World's Series Parlor Baseball, and of course it's not at all unusual to find stray bits (parts of other games, pencils, paper clips,
grocery lists, dead houseflies) in old boxed boardgames. However, the instructions for World's Series Parlor Baseball (post #4),
as you point out, show game pieces definitely resembling those in the Cooper game at Heritage, and a search of our digital
photo library turned up several examples of the alternate edition of the game, World's Series Base Ball Game, that included
those same Home / Visiting bits.

We'd also mention that several other completely unrelated tabletop baseball games of the era included coin-like playing pieces
of similar size and composition. So we'd agree with you -- rather than unrelated bits being found in the World's Series
Parlor Baseball box, we're sure they were original to game, and instead a few of those game pieces went astray and
have been misidentified as part of the PX7 set. Additionally, if they were part of the PX7 set, why wouldn't they carry
the same Sweet Caporal advertising as every other entry in that set?

[khkco4bls]

Here's mine with the other variation

[Butch7999]

Thanks, Kevin. Just to alleviate any possible confusion, though, for others reading this thread, your fifth and sixth photos
are of another game entirely (Major League Base Ball Game by Philadelphia Game Mfg Co, also shown in "4scuda" Mark's
posts 1 and 8).

World's Series Parlor Baseball by United Game Co included the eight-spinner board partially seen in posts 3 and 4.
United also produced it as World's Series Base Ball Game, variously featuring that same eight-spinner gameboard,
the same board identical but for a red-and-white game logo prominent in center field, and with a similar but significantly
different nine-spinner board, which is the one you have.