What's your oldest baseball related item?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Actually, I've sold off most of my material, but if you would like to see a list of important early pieces I once had or still own, I will be happy to offer a sampling:

1) 1787 A Little Pretty Pocketbook- early English book reissued in America with baseball woodcut and poem
2) 1834 Robin Carver's Book of Sports- first entirely American book that features baseball woodcut and rudimentary rules
3) 1835 Babcock's Boys Book of Sports- first American chap book which basically repeats Carver (also had 1838,39 editions)
4) 1852 Eagle BBC Constitution- inaugural constitution for the third club ever organized
5) two different ca. 1855 Alexander Cartwright daguerreotypes (quarter and sixth plates)
6) 1858 Fashion Course Scoresheet- hand scored sheet from the first Brooklyn- New York championship series ever played; also included scored games for Star of Brooklyn with Jim Creighton and Knickerbocker with Harry Wright
7) ca. 1858 baseball ambrotype- featured two players holding bat and ball which may be the earliest known image of players holding equipment
8) 1859 Base Ball Player's Pocket Companion- first book available to the public which featured serious discussion of New York and Massachusetts rules of the game.
9) 1859 NAABBP Consitution- second earliest known league constitution
10) 1860 Live Oak Polka- earliest color illustration of baseball ever issued in America
11) 1862 Excelsior Gold Ball- from game that was pitched by Jim Creighton

As I said, most I have already sold, but it is a nice sampling of some of the games earliest relics. They were all fun to own at one time. There were other pieces I owned from the 1850's, but my memory is not what it used to be.