Those M114's - When Are We Going To Talk About Them?

[akleinb611]

Having slept in today (I live on Long Island and we've been hit with a middling-sized blizzard), this is my first chance to see how the seed I planted last night has grown. Not bad. I'm gratified to see that people have found something in this subject that they like as much as I do.

As expected Doug has joined the discussion, and I can second his recommendation of the Itoya art portfolios he's mentioned. The 11x14 size is perfect for M114's, and my collection now resides in a series of these binders. My advice - find a major art supply retailer, pinpoint their price for the binders - and wait for a sale!

Finally, the person who noted that the second Ted Williams poster carries a Washington DC copyright line brings up an interesting issue. The dating of these pieces is generally taken from the checklist available in the SCD Standard Catalogue, which is a good checklist but not a great checklist. There are lots of missing posters, mostly variant poses of players. The best way to date an "orphan" pose is to match it up stylistically with other posters. Most pre-1940 pieces are clearly the work of Charles Conlan, and feature either a dugout background or a dark, one-color backdrop. Fully body poses of batters with their bat raised high over their head seem to date from the mid-1920's.

And then there's the possibility of reissues. Baseball Magazine didn't move to Washington DC until about 1955; if a poster that's dated earlier is labeled Washington rather than New York, that means that what you have is a caption variation. These are more frequent than you think. There are posters issued in the Thirties, for example, that sometimes carry a copyright notation of "New York," and sometimes the same pose can be found with "N.Y." That's too much for me; check with Doug Goodman, the only person dedicated enough (or crazy enough) to collect the caption variations as well!

A final point has to do with size. Many of the 1957-era, Washington DC posters are found in the 8 12x11 size. I don't believe these were trimmed by the original owners - the cutting seems too professional. I think that in their last year of operation, BB Magazine was contemplating a format change for the posters, and may even have recut some of the older ones from the early Fifties to a smaller size, to see if that would generate more interest.

Any thoughts?

Alan