Help putting date to sports equipment illo?

[Butch7999]

Hoping one of more of the baseball equipment experts here can estimate a date -- "can't be older than ______ " --
to a boardgame we recently encountered. We think the catcher's mask near the centre of the box-lid illustration
is probably the most telling item -- when was this particular sort of design introduced, or at least what was the earliest
that style of mask was in widespread use?

Any estimates for a date based on any of the other bits of sports equipment in view there are also welcome.
Thanks for any information or insights you can provide!

[aelefson]

Hi-

It is spider-man style mask. I think they came out in the 1890s but they were used through the first decade of the 1900s. Based on the other equipment pictured I would say the illustration is from circa 1895-1900 but I might be off by a few years. Please share the rest of the game when you have time as the illustration you show looks really cool.

Alan

[perezfan]

Agree, and it could be even a few years earlier. Note the baseball with the closer/tighter stitching, and its similarities to the 1888 Goodwin example linked below...

https://lelands.com/bids/1888-goodwi...iling-envelope

By the late 1890s, the baseball had evolved to look much more like modern examples with more spacing between the stitches.

[vintagesportscollector]

Based on the football, which has the distinct Spalding “No. J” look, I would say the illustration wouldn’t date any older than 1893.

[Butch7999]

Thanks for the excellent observations and input so far! (More is always welcome.)
The thing to bear in mind with illustrations, though, as contrasted with photographs, is of course
their often questionable accuracy. Is the drawing absolutely faithful to the reality of actual equipment
or uniforms or what-have-you? Is it just an approximation or artistic "shorthand"? Just within
our own tiny backwater collecting niche of sports boardgames, we could show you several items
that look very much of the 1870s-1890s timeframe (and are frequently ascribed to that period)
but have been proven indisputably to come from the 1910s or '20s.
Often the best that can be said is that "well, this kind of looks a lot like something that wasn't around
until (such-and-such) year, so it can't be older than that."

Here's the entire box lid and the interior gameboard -- even more sports gear! The conformation of
the various lacrosse sticks, tennis racquets, golf clubs, and so forth drawn there might also be telling,
but the catcher's mask was the one item that really jumped out at us.
This isn't ours, unfortunately, but it's a recent acquisition by a member of our own Forum,
on whose behalf we're inquiring...

[cmoore330]

Everything about that imagery says 1890’s.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by cmoore330

Everything about that imagery says 1890’s.

I would definitely agree it falls in that realm of 1880s to 1890s. Victorian games are really in a low unless they are sports or Christmas themed. Not sure if the generality of the theme here hurts. It’s outside my collecting window.

Milton Bradley and other brands churned these games out like crazy in the late 1800s. It makes sense they would be extremely popular as it predates radio and other distractions.Only half the homes in America had home electricity in 1925, this would be in the gaslight period.