Need help with old tintype- for Angela

[Leon]

I got an email from a nice young lady who Rob L sent our way. She has this tintype and would appreciate any information about it. Thanks in advance for any and all help. best regards

[ullmandds]

wow...that's incredible...that's all I know!

[slidekellyslide]

Can't help with the team or anything like that, but just wanted to comment and say that is a very nice tintype. Not sure if I've ever seen an integrated team tintype before.

[brianp-beme]

Cool...would the catcher's mask held by the black player help narrow down the time frame?

Brian

[barrysloate]

It appears to be 1880's and it is unlikely we will be able to determine the team. There does appear to be a black player and that of course makes it very desirable. The uniforms are nice and equipment is showing, another plus. Is it possible to get the size of it? The larger the plate, the more valuable it is. Overall, it's a much better than average baseball image.

[barrysloate]

Another interesting aspect of this image is that almost every player is wearing a different uniform. Not sure what to make of that.

[4815162342]

19th century All-Stars!

[E93]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Another interesting aspect of this image is that almost every player is wearing a different uniform. Not sure what to make of that.

Doesn't that indicate that is pre-dates a specific year? I remember hearing once that up until some year (188?) players wore different uniforms for different positions. I have a similar anonymous cabinet with players all wearing different uniforms.
JimB

Edited to add: Just read through all the posts and saw that someone already stated that in 1882 Spalding convinced players to wear different uniforms for different positions.

[forazzurri2axz]

seems to me to be wearing a shirt with the design of home plate?? and perhaps the initial of the city(R??) inside, even though the "R" seems to be backwards..

[Leon]

The owner has said :

"I bought it at a photo show from a New York dealer"

so that is all of the info she has....thanks again

[slidekellyslide]

The only thing anyone here can do is make an educated guess. She should contact Wes Cowan...something like this would make a great episode of History Detectives.

[barrysloate]

Without provenance, and without any information at all about the team, I would say the chance of identifying any of the players is about zero. It's still a great image, and tintypes are collected for one main reason- because they are great photographs of baseball in 19th century America. But strong teams rarely ever took tintype photos, and almost none of them are identifiable.

[ramram]

This image has been out there before. I remember seeing it at auction or ebay, or someplace about 8 - 10 years ago. As I recall, the previous owner was hinting or hoping that the black player was Walker.

Rob M.

Anyone think this may be a midwestern team. Segregation was still a very big issue in the North and the South at this time. Maybe even more so at this point than any due to the abolition of Slavery forcing thousands into the North out of the South. The Midwest would have embraced a skilled player regardless of color to simply fill the spot on a team. I swear I have seen that Logo on something from Kansas before and I have team photo of a guy from a bit later that looks similar. I am very interested in this. I love history from the CW timeframe. Especially when it includes baseball.

Since I can't copy the picture I will let whomever wants to do the side by side comparison make the determination because I dont have the program to do it It looks close and if you add a few yrs it could be