1888 Bailey Championship Prize - Sterling Silver Plaque 18”x 15”

[perezfan]

Carlton:

A landmark acquisition, and congrats!

I had a question about the athlete depicted under the letters "pi". You said that neither Cricket nor Baseball were depicted, but it sure looks like a guy swingin' a bat of some type. Is it Jai Alai, or maybe something else?

Thanks for the great post!

[mjkm90]

I thought the same thing Mark, but upon closer inspection it appears to be a racket sport perhaps.

[doug.goodman]

Fantastic piece. Fantastic post. Thank you.

Doug

[vintagesportflips]

Amazing looking piece Carlton, and the suspense within your tale of acquiring it was great!

[olsport]

Amazing piece Carlton. The find of a Lifetime! The Font of the lettering looks very much like that on the Temple Cup baseball trophy from the 1800s, and also one of the fancy sterling silver lifetime passes for MLB that has the stadium scene on it. I am so amazed that the piece was just sitting around somewhere for over 100 years.

[CarltonHendricks]

Thanks one and all for your kind words.

My friend Mike, who’s grandfather owned Dieges and Clust sent the link below to the Bailey Banks and Biddle history, very informative, lots of history.
http://www.baileybanksandbiddle.com/...y/history.html
Mike told me he actually dated one of the Biddle girls back in the mid-1970's, while they were in Gemology school together.

Mark PerezFan, I knew I’d hear from you on this piece!…Hey by the way I hear you’re really tear’n it up!!!! Congrats!

Shawn, whoa!!!…what the…keep’um coming buddy, those are fantastic…Please post everything in your power….I’m VERY anxious to see EVERYTHING you have!!!!!! But can you please include the periodical and date they came out of? Would really appreciate it….Shawn’s the man!!! Thanks much.

Please welcome Paul “olsport”…I sent him a link to this thread and he‘s now a member….Paul was a regular at the old PMA show in San Mateo back in “ol” the days before everything got eBayed…likes the antique stuff!
-Carlton

[BrockJacob]

Hows the ole National story coming along Carlton?

[CarltonHendricks]

Originally Posted by perezfan

Carlton:

A landmark acquisition, and congrats!

I had a question about the athlete depicted under the letters "pi". You said that neither Cricket nor Baseball were depicted, but it sure looks like a guy swingin' a bat of some type. Is it Jai Alai, or maybe something else?

Thanks for the great post!

Mark, It's a lacrosse player. I think there isn't a baseball player because the A.A.U. was not the governing body of baseball in 1888. Haven't had time to do any new research but here's a good synopsis below of the A.A.U.'s beginnings

In 1870 the New York Athletic Club (NYAC) was by far the best known athletic club in the United States. That year they started their series of athletic meets, known as the Spring Games and Fall Games of the NYAC – two per year. Early in 1876, it was decided that a national championship meet was necessary and desirable and the best known meet of the year was chosen to serve that purpose. Thus, in late 1876, the 7th Annual Fall Games of the NYAC became the first national championship meet. The NYAC sponsored the meet for three years.

In 1879, however, a national organization had been formed, composed of many member athletic clubs and known as the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America (NAAAA). They sponsored the 1879 meet and ran the meet through 1887.

In 1888 a rival organization to the NAAAA, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) came into being, quickly became the more powerful group, and held a national meeting in that year. The NAAAA, however, refused to fold immediately and also conducted a national championship in 1888 – thus there were two that year.

The national championship was held under the aegis of the AAU for almost a century. In 1978 the President's Commission on Amateur Sports was able to pass the Amateur Sports Act that delineated how amateur sports should be governed in this country. The AAU, which controlled the majority of the sports on the Olympic program, would see its powers severely crippled. A new organization, The Athletics Congress (TAC), was chosen to oversee track & field athletics. In 1980 TAC held its first national championship and control of the meet has rested there since.
Source http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/dis...cle.php?id=258

[CarltonHendricks]

Here’s the latest updates on the Bailey. Being Christmas eve, I’ll focus on this a little today eve before I launch for Christmas.

I emailed the Manhattan Athletic Club to see if they had a period photo since they won it in 1890.…heard nothing back.

I emailed the New York Athletic Club for a photo….They replied that they had referred my email to their historian, but that he didn’t know of one, and “to his knowledge, there is no photo or illustration of the plaque in question. He will, of course, look into the situation, and if one is located, we will be sure to notify you.”

I emailed Bailey Banks & Biddle. Ironically BB&B are going out of business/liquidating. Naturally a Jewelry store liquidation sale is usually just a sales tactic, but it seems to be for real. BB&B is owned by a large conglomerate of jewelry stores named Finlay Fine Jewelry Corp and according to a story in the Washington Business Journal it’s really going out of business. http://washington.bizjournals.com/wa...1/daily86.html .
Which is kind of ironic I’d find their masthead creation bearing their name at the same time they are shuttering after being in business since 1832. Anyway….I emailed the corporate office and didn’t know what to expect. I got back an email explaining they don’t have a company historian but they gave me the name and phone number of someone at one of their stores who “is familiar with our older items”. I spoke briefly with her yesterday and she was very nice and will be glad to help if she can but was very busy. You can imagine how busy a store going out of businesses at Christmas time must be. I expect to hear from her after the holidays. Initially I asked a courteous “how are you” and she said sad…I asked why and she said because they were closing. I asked her how long she had been with them…30 years she said.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier; not directly related to my plaque but is Bailey Banks & Biddle related, was that the very same Sunday I got the plaque I won a c1908 Bailey Banks & Biddle catalog of sorts on eBay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWNX:IT
It was listed as a catalog, and sort of is, but it’s more an advertising pamphlet that showcases some of their best trophies of that time. When I say trophy…please know trophies are divided into two types…you have stock cups and such that could be ordered from a catalog and a company would engrave it as you ordered. The other kind of trophy are what is called “Presentation Silver”. These are one of a kind commissioned pieces. Works of art really, that were typically ordered by wealthy individuals of corporate entities. They were usually awarded for major renown events, yachting, auto races, etc. This Bailey plaque is an example of “Presentation Silver. Most of the presentation silver produced in America was done by Reed and Barton, Tiffany and Co., Gorham, and Bailey Banks and Biddle. Actually I featured just such a piece for my May 24th- 30th 2009 Sports Antique of the Week. Anyway, my catalog turned out to be a showcase of BB&B presentation silver produced in the 1908 era. I post below photos of the catalog. Please pay attention to the dimensions of the pieces otherwise it’s hard to grasp their impact…and remember they are sterling.

One more note…In all the flurry of researching my plaque I came across a reference to a trophy called the “Founders Week Cup” that Bailey Banks & Biddle made and that sold in DuMouchelles Auctions in Detroit March 22nd for $128,700. I didn’t think too much about it till I was thumbing thru the catalog and what’a ya know…there is was!

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2...ed-to-auction/

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6244033

[smokeyjoewood]

I have a large imperial cabinet of the Detroit Athletic Club, AAU champions from 1890. Here is a pic of the very bottom of the cabinet(after removing matting to send for repair, cleaning), somewhere I have a closeup of the trophy in the photo. Will post later if you have any interest.

[CarltonHendricks]

Wow Paul....that's cool...Sure, yes I want to see the whole photo and of course a close in of the trophy...You will definitely want to re-mat it so the title and players can be seen....shame they covered it up all those years. Thanks a lot for posting...waiting for more of it

[smokeyjoewood]

Sorry for the poor photo quality. It's all I can do at the moment.

[Jay Wolt]

Carlton, this thread has been a fantastic read
Congrats on such a cool piece of American sports history.
Looking forward to seeing it restored on your cherry wood mount.

[CarltonHendricks]

Originally Posted by smokeyjoewood

Sorry for the poor photo quality. It's all I can do at the moment.

Paul, Thanks for posting that photo...little hard to make out but I think I'm seeing an example of a figural trophy I've never seen before...looks like figurals of a pitcher and a batter flanking a very 19th century looking urn/cup. Anxious to see a full shot of the photo. Thanks again. -C

[CarltonHendricks]

Originally Posted by smokeyjoewood

I have a large imperial cabinet of the Detroit Athletic Club, AAU champions from 1890. Here is a pic of the very bottom of the cabinet(after removing matting to send for repair, cleaning), somewhere I have a closeup of the trophy in the photo. Will post later if you have any interest.

Hi Paul, I'm looking forward to seeing a shot of the whole photo when you get time, thanks -Carlton

[smokeyjoewood]

Carlton,

I don't have access to the pics at the moment. They are on another computer a few thousand miles away. When I get a chance I will either post them here, or email them directly.

Paul

[CarltonHendricks]

18" tall x 16 3/4" wide
Been wanting to post this for almost a month....I've been going to the Alameda Point show about 12 years and never find any sports stuff there...at least my kind of display material. So I find the Bailey plaque..and a month later at the very next Alameda on Jan. 3rd of this month...I find this poster. It's what's called a literary poster. I have the Nov. 1896 Outing poster too and it has a football illustration as well. Anyway....Everyone knows Walter Camp who is referenced, but I noticed the name Wm. B. Curtis and vaguely recalled he was the one who initiated retiring my Bailey plaque...anyway I got the poster home and bingo....check out the stitch below...can you believe finding it one month to the day after getting the Bailey plaque...



So then last week I'm at the Long Beach flea and see the dealer that sold me the 1895 Nov. Outing poster, the guy in the striped shirt above...(by the way, you can read about my Long Beach Flea visit here)and while chit chatting I asked him where he'd gotten my poster...get this...he said he got it at a Out of the Closet thrift store in West Los Angeles for....$15.00!! He said initially he thought it was a repro but dug under the backing and saw it was real. I gave $375.00 and have no qualms at all that he paid $15.00....especially since I emailed a photo to Mark Weinbaum in NYC, who is one of the few poster dealers who deals in American posters. He sent the following:

...As for the Outing poster, I would say that this should be a $750/1000 priced poster. This particular Outing image is one I have seldom seen....

I sort of figured it was in that range. I've seen the image before on another poster..I can't recall exactly but I hope to run across it again....I think it was for either a U. Penn football poster or a Calif vs Stanford, and it was awesome and big and in color...I also recall it because the player in the center with his hand on the ball has kind of a crazy look! Anyway the poster had me on all points, Walter Camp, William Curtis who no one would know but me LOL, and the football image is very strong. It's unusual for a literary poster to be black and white, most had at least one magenta color, but on the other hand I think it's one of the strongest looking football images I've seen on a poster..and certainly for a literacy one. Has some fold you can't see unless you're looking for them....but if I get it mounted on linen they'll disappear completely.

And finally....I really hit pay dirt when I found both articles referenced on the poster, on line, click link below and you can read the actual articles
http://books.google.com/books?id=jV0...201895&f=false

And last, the artist Henry Sumner Watson (1868 -1933) is pretty well listed, see this link I'll also post a shot of the 1896 Outing poster I have