Anyone else collect Season Passes?

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Posted By: Steve M.

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Posted By: Rhys

Is that a stamped or real signature on the pass? Who is the man who signed it?

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Posted By: Clint

I collect them but they must have some relation to Kansas. If it's from a Kansas town or of somebody who played or lived in Kansas then I'm interested.

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Posted By: Joe D.

I think if I collected Season Passes...

my collection might begin and end with that NY Giants pass.


What a spectacular piece! Beautiful!

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I used to have some passes. My favorite was a 1920s NY Giants silver season's pass owned by Mrs. Edd Rousch (had her name engraved on back, and I bought it from the family). It was a silver medallion in the shape of a fan of bats.

The highest of high end season passes are the gold passes given only to super duper VIPS. They are rare on the market, and are made out of gold. Even most retired stars wouldn't get a gold pass, but a retired US President or a celebrity like Henry Ford might. Interstingly, most of the gold passes I've seen were given to non-baseball folks. It's likely that MLB assumed the celebrity wouldn't actually attend a lot of games (you probably don't want to be carrying around a gold bar in your back pocket). Instead it was an award, like a medal or plaque. If Henry Ford wanted to use the pass to attend a Cubs game, that would be fine. Presumably, the Cubs would let Ford in even without a ticket-- or at least the Detroit Tigers would.

Almost always, season passes-- gold, silver or cardboard-- were given to people of standing within baseball. Cardboard passes were often given to retired players, retired team executives and similar. The wife of an active player or team Vice President might get one. The season passes weren't generally, if at all, available to average Joe fans.

I've owned a small collection of MLB season passes, and they all belonged to MLB-related people-- Edd Rousch's wife, a retired common Pre-War MLB player (forget his name) and longtime MLB General Manager Harry Dalton. I also had a copy of a 1930s letter written from Ford Frick to 1800s pitcher Tommy Bond in which Frick writes that he will send Bond a season pass so he can attend games. I list my brief collection merely to substantiate that the passes were for VIPs only. In fact, in the case of Tommy Bond, the pass was given out by the League President himself.

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

These are some Cleveland season passes I have that were issued to photographer Louis Van Oeyen. They came out of the Barry Halper collection. I love the 1903 pass, issued to "L. Van Oeyen and Lady."







(My favorite:)

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Posted By: Steve M.

The pass is signed by John T. Brush the owner of the Giants until his death in 1912. The team was then taken over by Harry Hempstead his son-in-law. The pass was issued to Brush's grandson for the 1904 season.

Rob:

Those passes are deluxe!! I'll have to post some more myself.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Rob, in case you don't know, Louis Van Oeyen was a famous photographer for the Cleveland Press. He did both sport and non-sport subjects, but is best known today for his baseball photos shot at the Cleveland stadium. I've never before seen a pass like this for a famous vintage photographer. Below is a Van Oyen image from the Library of Congress site.

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

David,

Actually, I think Van Oeyen's best-appreciated work was done while shooting at League Park (as opposed to Cleveland Stadium).

I'm not all that into season passes, but when these became available, considering they were issued to Van Oeyen (and they came from Halper's collection), I thought they were pretty cool. There were a total of 12 different passes in the group.

Rob

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I used 'Cleveland stadium' as a generic term, as I didn't know the name of the stadiums. For all I knew, the Naps played in Drew Carey stadium,

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

of Neal Ball I recently sold............16x20 matte with 11x14 or so photo....
GREAT Passes by the way. Have 12-15 Louisville Colonel Passes from 1920's through 1972. If time permits, I'll scan and post.

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Posted By: Steve M.

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Posted By: David Smith

Five years ago, I missed out on a sterling silver 1899 Cincinnati Reds Season Pass at an auction. This was the only baseball item in the auction. The Reserve was $5,000 and it did not sell. After the auction was over, I asked the auction company if the seller would go any lower. They called the owner and he said he would take $4,000 for it. I tried but couldn't come up with the money. I never found out who the owner was but the way it sounded, he had some other old baseball items. What they were and how or where he got them, I have no clue.

Being a life-long Reds fan and also someone who likes rare items, this is one piece I am really upset over because I couldn't add it to my collection.

At the auction, I tried to read who the pass was issued to but couldn't because the writing was really small and light and it was in fancy cursive. I printed this picture off of the auction company website as a remembrance of that day and also, hopefully, so that I can use it in the future to try and track this piece down.


David