ID Help - Anyone ever seen one of these?

[Butch7999]

Same problem (and lack of success) here trying to find those earlier threads...
just tried Darren's Google/"search site:www.net54baseball.com" trick and that didn't help either...

Andy, we wouldn't swear they're "period" (nor would we insist they're not). The font on those strips
always made us suspicious about whether they're as old as they seem -- it looks a bit "modern" to us,
but a typography historian could tell us how old that font style actually is.

John, they're not from Milton Bradley's Game of Base Ball (which really isn't even a "baseball game" at all,
just a "chase" game, a la Snakes and Ladders, with baseball graphics). BoardGameGeek is a superb resource
in many ways, but as an unvetted wiki, it's fraught with errors (the very first entry on the page you linked,
for example, identifies the The Champion Game of Base Ball, definitively from 1915, as an "1888" product).
Good point, though, about the front-and-back printing -- a curious element.

Leon, thanks for chiming in -- yeah, we're pretty sure the pic we posted was of the strips you had.

Interesting to note (can't remember if it was mentioned in the earlier discussions) that Chance, Hofman,
Kling, and Tinker, in the red set, have identical bodies, and Baker, Collins, Davis, and Hartzel (in blue)
likewise, with just their faces Photoshopped (or some ancient precursor) swapped onto them.

Ooh, one more edit to add: occurs to us that Andy's player strips might maybe possibly perhaps originate
in some as-yet-unidentified sheet of cut-outs, vaguely similar to McLoughlin Bros' 1894-95 Amusement for
Boys to Cut Out, recently discussed here [ http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=21824 ],
first identified after years of mystery here [ http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=175103 ],
and covered in some further detail here [ http://baseballgames.dreamhosters.com/BbMcLoughlin.htm ].

[swarmee]

At least we've got improved checklists:
Cubs
1) 1B Frank Chance
2) P Orval Overall
3) SS Joe Tinker
4) OF Jimmy Sheckard (or possibly Steinfeldt or even a misspelled Schulte?) (next to #3 Tinker)
5/6) OF Solly Hofman and C Johnny Kling (need better scans to determine #)

Athletics:
1) 1B Harry Davis
2/3?) 2B Eddie Collins
2/3?)
4) 3B Frank Baker
5) OF Topsy Hartsel
6) ?

So between both teams we have C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, 3 OFs, and a P. Still missing a couple to call it complete, since presumably there are an equal number; I'm guessing two more Athletics for #1-6 (if Sheckard is #4) to match the Cubs.

[Butch7999]

We're given to wonder if a closer examination of the printing process involved might not offer some insight.
We'll include, below, for closer analysis, the full-sized picture of the strips (not necessarily the full, true, or
accurate size of the actual strips themselves) that we cribbed off an earlier Net54 thread. You can try
blowing it up even larger.

The red and blue strips each appear to have been cut apart from a continuous panel, but the images appear
to have been photographed from pre-existing strips previously cut out of something else -- we're imagining
a sort of panoramic montage that might have appeared in a newspaper or magazine of the day -- and laid against
a dark background.
Look at the edges of the images (not the strips, the player images) particularly on Kling, Tinker-Sh--, and Davis.

The player names on the front of the strips appear to have been cut out of whatever the original source
might have been and taped on -- Kling is crooked, Overall appears to overlap his foot (again, not taped on to
the red and blue strips, but taped onto the images that were photographed to produce the red and blue strips).

The numbers on each strip are obviously handwritten, not typeset -- but without being hands-on,
we can't guess whether the numbers are literally handwritten on the strips, or are printed there
from handwriting on the source material.

[CobbSpikedMe]

Thank you for continuing to opine on these.

The numbers seem to be written on the original source and not the finished strips themselves.

Also, I should've mentioned earlier that they are on a thicker cardboard (think a little thicker than a cereal box) stock as opposed to a thinner strip card stock, so the possibility they were cut from a box is plausible.

The actual sizes are quite small, about three inches tall, Baker is obviously a little shorter than that.

Also, I noticed that on the bottom of the back of my Chance there seems to be another Chance front slightly showing. See image below with the bottom of the back of Chance flipped over and placed next to the front. Interesting, no?

[Ricky]

If those are hand-cut from boxes or sheets, those are some amazingly straight cuts. From the marking on the bottoms, they almost look as though they were torn from something, like a matchbox or ticket-type binding.

[gonzo]

The Cub photos on the cardboard strips are strange.

I think the heads and torsos are taken from this team photo of the 1910 Cubs, but with heads, torsos, and legs cut-and-pasted.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/n...photo/73333815

Look at Sheckard in the team photo. Note his belt loops, the way that his jersey folds a bit to cause a sort of dent in the top of the “C” on his chest, and the way that his shirt folds noticeably on his right arm as he crosses it under his left.

Compare that to the cardboard strips for Hoffman, Kling, Tinker, and Chance. It looks to me like those photos are identical below the neck, and they all resemble that photo of Sheckard from just below the neck to below the belt.

The legs for those 4 seem to come from some other photo, but again, they look like the same set of legs, comparing the marks and folds by the knees.

Overall’s cardboard strip image, from his head to just over his knees, seems to have been copied from that team photo. But his legs from the knees down are still taken from somewhere else, to make it look like he is standing.

On the Athletics cardboard strips, the bodies all look the same to me from the chest down, with the heads cut-and-pasted in.

[CobbSpikedMe]

Very interesting. I agree the torsos look very similar. How odd though to take the torso from one guy, legs from another and heads from everyone else and put them all together to make these cards.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by gonzo

The Cub photos on the cardboard strips are strange.

I think the heads and torsos are taken from this team photo of the 1910 Cubs, but with heads, torsos, and legs cut-and-pasted.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/n...photo/73333815

Look at Sheckard in the team photo. Note his belt loops, the way that his jersey folds a bit to cause a sort of dent in the top of the “C” on his chest, and the way that his shirt folds noticeably on his right arm as he crosses it under his left.

Compare that to the cardboard strips for Hoffman, Kling, Tinker, and Chance. It looks to me like those photos are identical below the neck, and they all resemble that photo of Sheckard from just below the neck to below the belt.

The legs for those 4 seem to come from some other photo, but again, they look like the same set of legs, comparing the marks and folds by the knees.

Overall’s cardboard strip image, from his head to just over his knees, seems to have been copied from that team photo. But his legs from the knees down are still taken from somewhere else, to make it look like he is standing.

On the Athletics cardboard strips, the bodies all look the same to me from the chest down, with the heads cut-and-pasted in.

Interesting, and good spotting on the team photo. I'm not saying that this is indeed the case, but if they were game pieces you would definitely want the players to be depicted upright, instead of sitting.

I guess I am always trying to work a game angle on these.

Brian

[CobbSpikedMe]

Originally Posted by Butch7999

Andy, we wouldn't swear they're "period" (nor would we insist they're not). The font on those strips
always made us suspicious about whether they're as old as they seem -- it looks a bit "modern" to us,
but a typography historian could tell us how old that font style actually is.

Hi Butch. I took the liberty of looking into the font style and believe it to be Garamond or at least a variation of Garamond. Claude Garamond died in 1561 so this serif style has been around for quite some time. I don't think it would preclude the cards from being produced circa 1910.

They were obviously attached to something at one time, hence the paper loss on the bottoms of all of the examples shown so far. But what was it? I agree they weren't from a commercially made board game since they are all of varying sizes. But I also don't see them as being from some homemade game that someone created either. They would've had to have been printed at a professional printers shop and machine cut (in my opinion).

They also all have what looks like dried adhesive on the bottoms where they were attached to something and the adhesive doesn't look like it was applied by hand to me. It could've been, but I don't think so.

And why does my Chance have another Chance front printed on the back bottom of the card?

Just thinking out loud and not expected any real answers here. But I am interested in opinions still. Oh, one more thing...has there ever been a second example known of a particular player or are all of these one of a kind at this point?

[brianp-beme]

I have Overall. It happens to be the same exact one pictured in the group scan, and it is not like I have seen a bunch of these over the decades. It is a strong possibility that there are only one of each of these out there, making them possibly a prototypes (of a long lost game).

Brian

[docpatlv]

Andy,

I was the underbidder on the Chance & Baker. Thought I’d add them to my collection of “1”. As a previous poster mentioned, I always imagined they were torn off like matches for some type of raffle/drawing or as others have mentioned, for some type of game to be played (not necessarily a board game).

Here’s their long, lost brother...

[brianp-beme]

Just to point out that the Collins shown is also the exact one shown in the group lot in post #3, so still, as far as we know, these cards are all 1 of 1.

Brian

[Butch7999]

Brian, doc, Andy, esd, all good stuff. Nice to see so much energy being put into solving these possibly insoluble
not-quite-really-cards-and-what-the-hell-are-they.

Brian, we consulted some typographical experts as well, and, well, they're still not quite sure what the font is.
It very strongly resembles Caslon 540, we're told, but it's not a perfect match. In any case, the Caslon family
(dozens of increasingly modernized variations were developed over the years) dates back centuries, and
there was quite a revival of several variations of Caslon around 1900-1905, so we'll concede that the strips
could date back that far. Still doesn't mean they couldn't have been produced at a much more recent date, either.

We'll politely disagree on "commercially printed" and "machine cut" as certainties. A couple of us worked
for years in in-house graphics and printing operations, and we could easily have turned out a better-looking
result with little time and effort (granted, we had computerized copiers to facilitate some of the pre-press
work, which obviously wouldn't have been available to someone making these in 1910, if in fact
that's when they were made) -- but the basic procedures would have been the same, with just
a little more done-by-hand effort involved. And anyone with a metal straightedge and a razor
can cut a piece of cardstock well enough to make it appear appear machine-cut.

However, along with esd's reminder that these are printed front-and-back, the apparent presence of
a second Chance on one strip does suggest some attempt at multiple sets for distribution.
The notion that the strips were part of some prototype for a game that never actually went into production
is plausible. We just finished checking patents granted between 1908 and 1913, though, for games
that were in fact never manufactured, but none of them, unfortunately, involved any suggestion of
player-figures or markers of any kind for fielders or baserunners.

Damn, this is intriguing...

[baseball tourist]

The wear on the bottom reminds me of some pages ripped from a flip book.