1880's Detroit Wolverines Paper Dolls

[walnutts]

George - thanks so much - Have posted the information to the thread that you mentioned - no question that our Paper Dolls are part of what must be a rather large but apparently very rare series of Professional Baseball Team Paper Dolls published in the late 19th century (likely by McLoughlin). Hopefully if we all put our heads together, somehow this series will get properly identified.

Thanks again,
Tom

[CarltonHendricks]

Tom,
Glen Mechanick had those same ones on his table at the National....see below..I've seen them around over the years...always serious money....the ones I've seen have always been standing up mounted on a wood backing...I think all by Mcloughin Bros.

[Butch7999]

Sorry to report no further progress on these as yet.
We have access to McLoughlin catalogues and "order lists" in digital format, but for only certain years --
1882, 1894 and 1895, 1897 through 1900, and 1914 through 1920.
While several of those catalogues do include paper dolls for boys -- mostly military figures -- we couldn't find any listed
that are associated with baseball or any other sports.
As we mentioned in the other thread [ http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=174760 ], while we've seen these figures
by themselves before, we've never seen them included with any of the 18 known McLoughlin baseball games (which doesn't absolutely
rule out the possibility that they were in fact original to a game and merely missing from any of the scarce examples offered for sale
or at auction in the last 20-25 years).
Also perhaps worth noting: almost all the McLoughlin paper dolls are described as being in the range of 6-7" tall.
The baseball figures appear significantly smaller than that.
We're also pretty certain, judging largely by the "1880s" labels, that they were affixed to the wood blocks
at a much later date than their manufacture.