Folk Art Renditions of Baseball Players/ Who Are They?

[TaxMechanick]

I agree.. Its funny, the Cooper one's (6 of them) that Butch7999 posted (from Cooper's book) are fairly similar images as the (6) posted also posted by Butch7999 above in this thread, relating to a link previously posted from about 10 years ago, yet they are on different types of wooden, I'll call them bowling pins, although, I suppose the Cooper one's could be Indian Clubs. As Mark, says there are some slight differences, i.e. in the player squatting.

The fact that the (2) (I'll call them) sets are reasonably but not exactly identical, I'm not sure whether this gives more credence to them being produced or folk art? I would think the fact that they are somewhat close to being identical, but not exact, might initially infer that the images at least were produced and then perhaps painted over individually (in folk art manner), but then again.....

Also funny is that each (set) has a similar number (6) and is relatively identical, which infers each is a set... however, logic, if they are on bowling pins, is that there may be more to compose a set... likely (10) in total. Adding credence to this is that the (2) I have as illustrated above are totally different images than the (6) commonly in each set.

I have not seen those sets in person to be able to compare the images and details and color differences of the painted renditions, perhaps over initial transfer images (other than I recollect seeing the Cooper ones about 30 years or so ago, while he was set up at the old Atlantic City Convention Center on the boardwalk... and I do not remember them well enough, except to this day still remembering how cool they were).

I wonder regarding the (2) (sets) of (6), whether one was done first as "folk art" and the other one was done, perhaps even by the same person, or by another person (only having in hand those 6 of the original ones were done, from a larger original population, i.e. of 10), similarly as folk art renditions, thus explaining relatively small differences. From the original link provided above, there was a similar group also on different pins , and I believe larger in size (although I'm not sure of a comparison of the size of the images themselves), also perhaps done "as folk art" from the original or secondary group.

As discussed above, perhaps these were transfers hand painted over, but, then why the small differences in the images themselves (without regard to colors from paintings over) of sets?

The other issue, of course, is whether they were originally intended as renditions of specific players (as Cooper identified, exclusive of the (2) I have), or just intended as generic? I give more credence to being specific player renditions. As I discussed above, I am fairly confident on one of mine being a depiction of long John Riley; the other I'm less confident, but reasonably believe to be John Monte Ward.

I understand at this point, we may be going around in circles, but, if anyone finds anything additional or has an additional thoughts... please share?

Thanks & Best,
Glenn