Elmer Chickering Studio Cabinets

[sb1]

I have had Bailey and Lewis cabinets since Lew originally sold them, picked up the Hickman later. I have had the Lowe for many years as well.

On the auction situation. No need to go over old ground with it. In a nutshell, the auction ended(this was during an experimentation of auction endings that the auction ended at an exact time and if no one else bid you won) Well I placed several bids right at the cut off time, so no one could outbid me, knowing that there was no extension. I bid, was high bidder, received the "you have won" email and called it a night. Unbeknown to me they restarted the auction a few minutes later, "because many people could not get bids in" well I thought that was the purpose of the hard close. Bid or lose! To no avial was I able to persuade them I should be the correct winner, as someone else had bid in the next few minutes after they reopened it and then reclosed it.

Not the biggest deal in the world, we all know I have had enough good fortune and foresight, to write off one bad incident.

[Runscott]

I wouldn't sweat it, Scott - Willis didn't know how to tie his laces and wouldn't have fit in with that other bunch.

[sb1]

The large format are all blank back(black) and orginated from the Meekin family thru well known dealer R. Neufeldt who consigned them to Lew(at least this is my recollection). The regular size Lowe is also blank backed with 1897 penciled on it.

I suspect but cannot prove that these may have been produced only for members of the team during those years and thus have no advertising on the back as they were not available to the public??

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by sb1

I suspect but cannot prove that these may have been produced only for members of the team during those years and thus have no advertising on the back as they were not available to the public??

Could the team have requested that he not reproduce them for others, on request? That would seem weird to me, as it's free advertising for the team, and extra money for Chickering. Blank-backed is common - maybe all of Chickering's cabinets were that way?

[RCMcKenzie]

Thanks for all the additional information.

The Wikipedia page for Elmer Chickering Studios states that the studio has moved to a different location, but is still open and owned by George H. Hastings and Orrin Champlain. I wonder if they still have the baseball negatives in the archives?

[sb1]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Could the team have requested that he not reproduce them for others, on request? That would seem weird to me, as it's free advertising for the team, and extra money for Chickering. Blank-backed is common - maybe all of Chickering's cabinets were that way?

Most of the generic "people" cabinets all have the advertising back with street address. My thinking was that it may have been some type of "team issue" for lack of a better word. Especially on the imperial plate size as most of those of teams of the 1890's era by both Chickering and Pach have come down thru members of the team originally, whether it be Harvard, Yale, etc. Even Leon's Horner composite was owned by a ballplayer(Callahan). I don't think that the photographers sold these to the general public, otherwise we would see many more one would think?

[Runscott]

Your reasoning makes sense. I was thinking that since people could order Newsboy cabinets of their favorite stars, or later, Sporting Life cabinets, that there was a public demand for such things, and it would have been logical for Chickering to have had a few of the Boston ones displayed in his shop, in hopes of getting a few orders.

[sb1]

I think the difference there would be that both Newsboy and Sporting Life were national scale publications that could both advertise and probably job out their printing and make it work. In those days a local photographer, even on the scale of Chickering would not have been able to make it work.

[Rich Klein]

Roger said these photos were hanging in a family bar for years until he finally convinced them to sell the photos.

I know some people said Lew (and Roger) might have done better if this had been sold as one big lot instead of breaking them into singles/pairs.

I honestly think if these had been found (and sold) even 10 years later they would have gotten even more money as the interest would have been helped with increased internet coverage to go with the sports collecting interest.

Rich

[SetBuilder]

A dealer once told me that two guys out in Silicon Valley programmed a facial recognition bot to crawl through eBay cabinet photos and they found $50,000 worth of baseball players in 1 day.

[Bicem]

Awesome cabinet!

[Jobu]

Total BIN price: $325,000

Originally Posted by SetBuilder

A dealer once told me that two guys out in Silicon Valley programmed a facial recognition bot to crawl through eBay cabinet photos and they found $50,000 worth of baseball players in 1 day.

[oldjudge]

1887 Lowell's with a young Hugh Duffy.