Carl Horner Photographs

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Posted By: Hankron

They're known as 'Horner Cabinets' or 'Horner Cabinet Cards.' Technically, the big ones (white bordered pictures affixed to about 8x10" dark cardboard mounts) are not cabinet cards, but that's what they're popularly called (Simularly, the W600s and the T3 Turkey Reds are not cabinet cards, though the T5 Pinkertons are) ... If you ever see one of the littler ones with Horner's credit embossed on the mount below the real b&w photo and the photo has no white border, those are super expensive. I think MastroNet auctioned an Addie Joss one of these for something like $7-9,000 (+ or - depnding on the accuracy of my memory), though original photos of Joss are particularly rare in the first place due to his early death. The little ones are true cabinet cards.

And if you want super expensive, Horner made some monster-sized composite photos for various early 1900s leagues, each photo picturing little vignettes of like 100 different players. A fine example of one of these might sell for over $20,000, and I don't think I've ever seen one on eBay. His name is printed on these, so it's easy to identify as his production.

So, due to the extreme rarity, high quality and famous poses (such as the one used to make the T206 Honus Wagner), Horner was like the tiffany of early 1900s baseball photos.