A frame job with a pleasant ending

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Posted By: Rob D.

A recent memorabilia pickup was lot No. 1247 (page 312 in the catalog) in Huggins & Scott recent auction. It's a 1905 Sporting News fold-out premium that features 10 athletes of the day in nine sports, highlighted (at least to me) by Nap Lajoie. I had hoped to post a photo of the item from the H&S site, but it's already been removed. Regardless, it measures 45 x 7 inches, and the paper can best be described as almost being like parchment paper. Very fragile.

When it arrived, I was thrilled, because it looked even better than the photos on the Web site. It was shipped folded (cringe), but after unfolding it to its full size, I felt it was a pretty impressive piece. Kind of like a panoramic photo from the era at a fraction of the price.

Anyway, after the thrill wore off, I was struck by the question, "Now what?" I didn't want to leave it folded, and to display it unfolded would call for some serious framing. I'm not a big fan of getting vintage pieces framed, but I had little choice with this if I was going to do anything with it other than store it in a drawer.

The result is below. I wanted to share the photos not only because I'm really happy with how it turned out, and this is the first significant piece of Cleveland-related memorabilia I've added to my collection in some time, but also because I think it illustrates that if you can find the right person to work with you in framing a piece, it makes it very worthwhile.

The person who did this was knowledgeable about the right way to frame a fragile, vintage piece, and she understood my apprehension and answered every question I had (and there were a lot).

It was tough to photograph this, but I hope you'll get the idea.

Thanks for letting me ramble.