January 29, 1936: Let's See Your Inaugural HOFers Sigs

[packs]

On this day, January 29, 1936 the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted its inaugural class of Hall of Famers. Let's see some items from the first class:

Walter Johnson:

[Scott Garner]

Packs,
Love the WaJo vintage postcard!

Here are a few of my favorite signatures of Walter Johnson in my personal collection:

A signed and dated RPPC of WaJo from his last season 1927

A vintage questionnaire/ GPC from 1929 (photos of front and back)

A beyond rare 1940's Christmas card from the Big Train to one of his neighbors in Maryland

[Augy44]

So happy to have added this one to my collection!

[daves_resale_shop]

Going to be waiting for #5 for awhile I think...

[jgmp123]

#5 is certainly a long way away....but, i'm glad to have 4 of 5.

[JoeyF1981]

[packs]

Here's my Honus:

[yanksfan09]

Very happy to own these 2/5...

[Runscott]

Same boat as Dave - need me some Matty

[esiason14]

Those letters make me jealous. Sweet!

[HRBAKER]

WaJo check



Wags check



Cobb album page

[thenavarro]

Here are my Cobb's

Here are some of mine:



"I am going to ward off with God's help the "bow out" or final curtain as long as possible." Even the great Ty Cobb showed his mortality.










Ty takes a young fan to task in this one, LOL (ironically, the fan and Cobb developed a pen pal relationship that led to the fan penning a book which included this letter)




Some of the greatest athletes of the early 1900's including the Peach



and a signed envelope

[Scott Garner]

Scary good pieces, Mike! Wow!

[HOFautosChris]

Amazing items everyone. Got me itching to add to my collection soon

[GKreindler]

Jeff,

Just curious, where did you get that Cobb image from?

Graig

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by GKreindler

Jeff,

Just curious, where did you get that Cobb image from?

Graig

Graig,

Way back in 1992 a company called Megacards licensed a series of Francis Burke images and reprinted them in 16 x 20s numbered to 975. I bought the Cobb which I framed with the album page and this Johnson which I still have but ended up not using with my check.



Here's a better shot of the Cobb photo. Same image used on the m101-4/5 card.

[GKreindler]

Ahhh, I thought it was Burke. His images were so damn incredible. I wish there were more of them out there in the public.

This book, which was done by David R. Phillips, does have a number of great images in it, and is probably the largest collection of his stuff out there:

http://www.amazon.com/That-Ball-Game.../dp/B0010GE49G

Phillips was in possession of Burke's negatives a few years back, which included a melange of subjects in addition to baseball. Last I heard, he was in the middle of selling Burke's old negatives off as an entire collection, but I have NO idea whether that actually happened.

Graig

[Lordstan]

My Wagner and Cobb checks. Matted with photos of paintings by some guy.







Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[GKreindler]

That guy sucks (the painter)!!

Graig

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by GKreindler

Ahhh, I thought it was Burke. His images were so damn incredible. I wish there were more of them out there in the public.

This book, which was done by David R. Phillips, does have a number of great images in it, and is probably the largest collection of his stuff out there:

http://www.amazon.com/That-Ball-Game.../dp/B0010GE49G

Phillips was in possession of Burke's negatives a few years back, which included a melange of subjects in addition to baseball. Last I heard, he was in the middle of selling Burke's old negatives off as an entire collection, but I have NO idea whether that actually happened.

Graig

My memory on this is fuzzy, but I do remember high-quality Frances Burke baseball prints being sold years back - maybe 10 or so - there were a lot of them and they were high-quality. I believe it was a limited number of prints of each image, but I'm not sure. In any case it didn't last long and I can't even find anything about it by googling.

[GKreindler]

You're definitely right, Scott. I'm pretty sure the Johnson and Cobb images were part of that group. I also have ones of Matty, Wagner, and one of my favorites, a great shot of Matty chatting with Bresnahan, which I've enclosed below:



It's a friggin' winner, no matter how you slice it.

Graig