Elmer Chickering Studio Cabinets

[RCMcKenzie]

I saw this post about a Cabinet Card in the Boston Library...

http://www.net54baseball.com/showpos...7&postcount=34

and I started looking around for more information on Elmer Chickering cabinets. I saw where the SCD list some 1899 approx. 9x10 Boston Beaneater cabinets and some 1900 approx. 4x6 cabinets of uniformed players.

I looked on ebay and saw this Oarsman O'Connor graded by sgc...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/C1888-WILLIA...-/321046393145

I bought one of an anonymous person with the same font as the O'Connor card.

Does anyone recognize this person in the photo? Or does anyone have any addional information on Chickering Studio Cabinets? I have read that Chickering Studios took many photos of celebrities, politicians, and atheletes in the Boston area.

chickering.jpgchickeringb.jpg

[aelefson]

Hi-
Unfortunately, I am fairly certain that is not a baseball player, or anyone famous. There are tens of thousands of Chickering cabinets with similar mounts as he was a prominenent photographer for everyone in the Boston area. There are only hundreds (or less) baseball subjects by him. I could be wrong of course.
Alan

[uffda51]

Here is my Chickering cabinet of Duffy. Lew Lipsett auctioned off a group of Beaneater imperial cabinets several years ago and this is one of those. Quite possibly one of a kind. At least one other board member has one.

[sb1]

3 from Lipset sale and another later issue.

[sb1]

Owned it momentarily and somehow lost out on a restart of the auction AFTER it ended

[RCMcKenzie]

Alan, thanks for the info. I was thinking the Chickering Cabinets had a smaller total population for all subjects. The card I have was only $15 and I was looking to see what the cards looked like in person. They are very expensive looking, high-grade photographs.

Bruce and Scott, thanks for posting your cards. Great cards. Hope some go up for sale at auction soon. I was wondering if the backs of the baseball cards are similar to the O'Connor, or the one I posted , or something different. Thanks

Rob

[uffda51]

My Duffy card is not at home but as I recall it has a blank back.

[Bicem]

Originally Posted by sb1

3 from Lipset sale and another later issue.

those are awesome, how long ago did you buy them?

[e107collector]

Originally Posted by sb1

Owned it momentarily and somehow lost out on a restart of the auction AFTER it ended

Scott, how the heck did that happen? Also, if you don;t mind, what was the auction house?

Tony

[sb1]

I have had Bailey and Lewis cabinets since Lew originally sold them, picked up the Hickman later. I have had the Lowe for many years as well.

On the auction situation. No need to go over old ground with it. In a nutshell, the auction ended(this was during an experimentation of auction endings that the auction ended at an exact time and if no one else bid you won) Well I placed several bids right at the cut off time, so no one could outbid me, knowing that there was no extension. I bid, was high bidder, received the "you have won" email and called it a night. Unbeknown to me they restarted the auction a few minutes later, "because many people could not get bids in" well I thought that was the purpose of the hard close. Bid or lose! To no avial was I able to persuade them I should be the correct winner, as someone else had bid in the next few minutes after they reopened it and then reclosed it.

Not the biggest deal in the world, we all know I have had enough good fortune and foresight, to write off one bad incident.

[Runscott]

I wouldn't sweat it, Scott - Willis didn't know how to tie his laces and wouldn't have fit in with that other bunch.

[sb1]

The large format are all blank back(black) and orginated from the Meekin family thru well known dealer R. Neufeldt who consigned them to Lew(at least this is my recollection). The regular size Lowe is also blank backed with 1897 penciled on it.

I suspect but cannot prove that these may have been produced only for members of the team during those years and thus have no advertising on the back as they were not available to the public??

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by sb1

I suspect but cannot prove that these may have been produced only for members of the team during those years and thus have no advertising on the back as they were not available to the public??

Could the team have requested that he not reproduce them for others, on request? That would seem weird to me, as it's free advertising for the team, and extra money for Chickering. Blank-backed is common - maybe all of Chickering's cabinets were that way?

[RCMcKenzie]

Thanks for all the additional information.

The Wikipedia page for Elmer Chickering Studios states that the studio has moved to a different location, but is still open and owned by George H. Hastings and Orrin Champlain. I wonder if they still have the baseball negatives in the archives?

[sb1]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Could the team have requested that he not reproduce them for others, on request? That would seem weird to me, as it's free advertising for the team, and extra money for Chickering. Blank-backed is common - maybe all of Chickering's cabinets were that way?

Most of the generic "people" cabinets all have the advertising back with street address. My thinking was that it may have been some type of "team issue" for lack of a better word. Especially on the imperial plate size as most of those of teams of the 1890's era by both Chickering and Pach have come down thru members of the team originally, whether it be Harvard, Yale, etc. Even Leon's Horner composite was owned by a ballplayer(Callahan). I don't think that the photographers sold these to the general public, otherwise we would see many more one would think?

[Runscott]

Your reasoning makes sense. I was thinking that since people could order Newsboy cabinets of their favorite stars, or later, Sporting Life cabinets, that there was a public demand for such things, and it would have been logical for Chickering to have had a few of the Boston ones displayed in his shop, in hopes of getting a few orders.

[sb1]

I think the difference there would be that both Newsboy and Sporting Life were national scale publications that could both advertise and probably job out their printing and make it work. In those days a local photographer, even on the scale of Chickering would not have been able to make it work.

[Rich Klein]

Roger said these photos were hanging in a family bar for years until he finally convinced them to sell the photos.

I know some people said Lew (and Roger) might have done better if this had been sold as one big lot instead of breaking them into singles/pairs.

I honestly think if these had been found (and sold) even 10 years later they would have gotten even more money as the interest would have been helped with increased internet coverage to go with the sports collecting interest.

Rich

[uffda51]

Lew's auction of the Beaneater cabs was in April of 2003.

[RCMcKenzie]

I think the Chickering cabinet that I have is of N29 Allen & Ginter cyclist subject Wm. A. Rowe. What do y'all think?.............


www.ebay.com/itm/370740979129

[sb1]

I would say no.

[RCMcKenzie]

Scott, thanks for the reply. I'm still trying to salvage my $15 investment. Even if I could show that this is a cyclist card, it would have a very slim market and probably not more than $100-200 value.

The back says, photo taken Nov. 19 /89... so this looks like it would not fit if N29 are all 1888.

I have a better baseball find (cabinets, not Chickering,) that I will be posting about when they arrive.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie

Scott, thanks for the reply. I'm still trying to salvage my $15 investment. Even if I could show that this is a cyclist card, it would have a very slim market and probably not more than $100-200 value.

The back says, photo taken Nov. 19 /89... so this looks like it would not fit if N29 are all 1888.

I have a better baseball find (cabinets, not Chickering,) that I will be posting about when they arrive.

There is a good market for i.d'd cyclist photos. I bought one from 1897, of a non-famous cyclist, and paid a pretty penny for it...but I had to have it. The ones of them in their uni's with their bicycle can be pricey.

I used to have a customer who collected tintypes of bicycles, so now I still keep my eyes open for them.

[RCMcKenzie]

Scott F,

I have seen the N49 cyclist cards sell for around 50-100, so it does look like people buy cards with the bikes pictured.

It's interesting that the N162 Rowe looks nothing like the N29 Rowe. I bought the N29 Rowe card on ebay so I will post a large side by side scan when I get the card. The guy's hair is the same in the N29 drawing as it is in the photo I have. His moustache is different, but maybe he combed it differently in 1889 than 1888.

[nameless]

I just picked up a couple of nice chickerings. The backs are great. Can anyone tell me about them? Lots of good info in this thread. These came out of an old bar which a famous 19th century athlete bounced at. I believe maybe they were gifts? Thanks!

[RCMcKenzie]

Your cards look like the boxer John L Sullivan to me.

Here is one I picked up recently

[nameless]

It is Sullivan and Kilrain. I havent seen any others like these. What year is yours from?

[RCMcKenzie]

The baseball one I posted is of General Stafford, who played for Boston in 1898 and 1899.


John L. Sullivan's wikipedia page has the same image shown as the Chickering one on the right that you have. Wikipedia has the photo dated at 1898, but they don't have it sourced.

[nameless]

Also I have seen a lot of different backs.

[RCMcKenzie]

If you have Adam W.'s 2nd edition boxing guide, look on page 57 and 58.

Page 57 has the same image as the chickering one you have on 2 anonymous cabinets.

[nameless]

yes I know the image. It is by John Wood of Boston. I can name a few type cards with this. My question is the ad backs. These were always changing?

[RCMcKenzie]

I think the J Wood image is similar, but not the exact same photo as your Chickering cabinet photo.

Elmer Chickering would not have used a photo by J Wood on his own cabinet.

I believe the anonymous cabinets that Adam shows in his guide were produced after the Chickering photo, and were uncredited.

[RCMcKenzie]

Here are some threads with more information on the different Chickering cabinet styles..

www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=163008

www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=136260


also see

www.ebay.com/itm/251303231334

Does this mean Chickering made this photo that was used in the SF Hess series??

[nameless]

Could be. Either him or John Wood. This cabinet I have is rarer than the S.F Hess card. I have owned a couple actually. Seriously I have only been able to locate two other Chickering John L Sullivan Studios and one of them is graded by the SGC at a 20. I am wondering if these were even sold to the public? This card came from the White Horse pub where Sam Hurst (an 1850's Heavyweight Champion of Englan) used to be a bouncer. I guess the pub belonged to an old boxing family. Again thanks for all the info on this! Keep it coming

[RCMcKenzie]

Here is an example of the J Wood image...

www.ebay.com/itm/310642398030


Here are examples of mass produced cards that used your Elmer Chickering proof image.

Leblanc has this Champion of the World card that is pictured on page 57 of the Boxing Guide...

www.ebay.com/itm/390562373748

Playing card set...


www.ebay.com/itm/290915796175

[nameless]

Very cool. I believe my Chickerings to be very rare. I have only seen two other Chickering cabs of Sullivan and I have never seen a Kilrain.

[nameless]

Is this photo studio still around?

[nameless]

Had a professional remove the boarder mounts on the backs. VERY PLEASED TO SAY THE LEAST!

[rockthree]

I recently picked up this 1899 Chickering Boston Team Cabinet and wondered what your thoughts were in terms of getting it professionally restored -- specifically the torn/peeling section at the bottom, and maybe a cleaning? I'm most likely going to consign it in the not too distant future. FYI, this thing is huge -- 19.5" x 23.5"!

[SetBuilder]

A dealer once told me that two guys out in Silicon Valley programmed a facial recognition bot to crawl through eBay cabinet photos and they found $50,000 worth of baseball players in 1 day.

[Bicem]

Awesome cabinet!

[Jobu]

Total BIN price: $325,000

Originally Posted by SetBuilder

A dealer once told me that two guys out in Silicon Valley programmed a facial recognition bot to crawl through eBay cabinet photos and they found $50,000 worth of baseball players in 1 day.

[oldjudge]

1887 Lowell's with a young Hugh Duffy.

[scooter729]

Originally Posted by rockthree

I recently picked up this 1899 Chickering Boston Team Cabinet and wondered what your thoughts were in terms of getting it professionally restored -- specifically the torn/peeling section at the bottom, and maybe a cleaning? I'm most likely going to consign it in the not too distant future. FYI, this thing is huge -- 19.5" x 23.5"!

Heritage has a listing in their February auction for the same cabinet. Yours is larger than the Heritage one, although yours obviously is in rough shape. Great item nonetheless - I certainly will be interested to see what you decide to do with it, as one who collects Boston items from the era!

Heritage listing

[RCMcKenzie]

Nice cabinet, rockthree. I would leave it as it is. It is a very sharp photo.
Nice cabinet, Jay.
Manny and Bryan, to your point, a board member saw this "man in a suit" on eBay and recognized it as HOF boxer Jim Corbett. I posted it the other day in the Boxing section. The mount is similar to the General Stafford which I think puts the Corbett photo around 1898-99.

[Leon]

Is that Teddy Z. ? The Chickering's sure have some great focus.

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie

I saw this post about a Cabinet Card in the Boston Library...

http://www.net54baseball.com/showpos...7&postcount=34

and I started looking around for more information on Elmer Chickering cabinets. I saw where the SCD list some 1899 approx. 9x10 Boston Beaneater cabinets and some 1900 approx. 4x6 cabinets of uniformed players.

I looked on ebay and saw this Oarsman O'Connor graded by sgc...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/C1888-WILLIA...-/321046393145

I bought one of an anonymous person with the same font as the O'Connor card.

Does anyone recognize this person in the photo? Or does anyone have any addional information on Chickering Studio Cabinets? I have read that Chickering Studios took many photos of celebrities, politicians, and atheletes in the Boston area.

Attachment 82518Attachment 82519

[aelefson]

Despite my earlier post on how many anonymous people Chickering photographed, I too have a question about the possibility of two photos I bought a few years ago. Below is the first one. I sincerely doubt it, but is there any chance this is Vic Willis? I have attached an image of his I found online. I am not good with facial recognition, so I am fairly certain I will get several quick posts stating it is not. I always like to double check though. I can get a better scan if needed. The third image is the other Chickering with similar damage and style I purchased (total of 2.00 spent).

Alan