1859 Harper's Woodcuts

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Posted By: Sean

can someone give me info on this set? I've just heard of it on oldcardboard.com

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Posted By: Rick McQuillan

The January/February 1998 Issue #14 of VCBC has a good article on the Harpers woodcuts.
You can also look in Lew Lipsett's Baseball Card Encyclopedia.

I have been working on them for quite a while, and I am about half way there.

Rick

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

In addition to the good information above, Volume 1 of Mr. Lipset's Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards provides great coverage of the 1869 Harper's Woodcuts. They're a great, affordable way of getting some of the 19th century players without spending a lot of money.

If there's one or two that you particularly want to see, then I'll try to get them out and scan one or two for you.

Frank.

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Posted By: Phil Garry

Sean:

There is an issue in 1890 that pictures approximately a dozen HOF'ers. I'm not sure of the exact date but it was like a pre-season preview issue. That would be a great one to start off your collection with.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Opening of the Base-Ball Season of 1890, May 3, 1890. It is actually 4 pages. It has 28 woodcuts of players, and a comic woodcut, a generic woodcut, all about Base Ball, team rosters... I think at least 8 Hall of Famers are depicted. And Roger Conner is on there, I guess I should have scanned that for the other thread.

A neat thing about the Harper's Weekly woodcuts is that the paper is of good quality, it holds up much better than newsprint that is half as old.

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Posted By: Anonymous

I would like to see a 1859,1860 or 1861

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Modern newspaper uses wood pulp which turns brown and brittle. Real old paper, including for 1700s papers, didn't have wood pulp so can be found in much better condition.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I think there is only one Harper's Weekly woodcut that is pre-1865, that is from October 15, 1859, A Baseball Match at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken. That is the only one. The rest are from 1865 and later.

There are 2 from 1865, an 1866, and one from 1867.

The next oldest is one I have, the July 3, 1869 woodcut showing that fine Cincinnati Red Stocking team.

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Posted By: Dave

David is right. papers from the mid 1800's were made with cotton or hemp fibers I think. They don't tend to yellow much with age. Sometime around 1890-1900 Harpers started using a different type of papaer to print on which will turn yellow and decay like todays cheap paper.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Old paper was made from rags (cotton, hemp) and is called rag paper. When they started running out of rag, they started including wood fiber. Wood fiber ages badly. Since they were for one day, modern papers used the cheapest paper with extra high wood fiber content. Thus a 1985 newspaper can be in worse shape than a 1790 paper.

They still make rag paper, like for art paper.

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Posted By: Lyman

Sean, the 1859 Harper's Weekly woodcut is shown below. It is the subject of an article in Old Cardboard magazine (Issue #7; Spring 2006, p. 32-33). It was originally printed across two pages in Harper's (measuring about 7-1/2 x 21 inches) and is reproduced on a two-page spread in OC at about 80 percent of original size. As stated earlier in this thread, it was the first of about 40 baseball-themed woodcuts printed in Harper's between 1859 and the 1890s. Hope this helps. --Lyman