Was this the first baseball postcard?

[BeanTown]

Originally Posted by steve B

Well, that made me take a closer look, and to look up some Canadian postal history. And that led some interesting places.

The stamp is correct for 1893, there are finer points to that whole series involving papers and colors to determine when and where it was printed, but While my wife collects Canada, I haven't really gotten into most of that.

The interesting bit is the rate described on the piece itself, Book post, printed matter only. That would be very unusual for a postcard, which went at the same 1c rate
From the 1893 Canadian postal rates

3rd Class Matter.—Addressed to Canada.—1. Transient newspapers and periodicals. Rate, 1 cent per 4 oz.; prepayment compulsory; limit of weight, 5 lbs. A single paper weighing not more than 1 oz. may pass for ½ cent.
2. Book packets. Rate, 1 cent per 4 oz.; limit of weight, 5 lbs., except for a single book, in which case the limit is 7 lbs.
3. Miscellaneous matter. (a) Printed pamphlets, printed circulars, etc., and also seeds, cuttings, bulbs, etc.; rate, 1 cent per 4 oz. (b) Maps, lithographs, photographs, circulars produced by a multiplying process easy to recognize, deeds, mortgages, insurance policies, militia, school and municipal returns, printed stationery, etc.; rate, 1 cent per 2 oz.
Circulars, Prices Current, etc., to pass at 1 c. rate must be ENTIRELY PRINTED. Any insertion in ink is not permissible, except the name and address of the addressee, the name of the sender and the date of the circular itself.

So 1 cent was pretty much the minimum. (Regular newspapers were carried free to other cities!)

Here's an example of a different photographers wrapper for photographs from the same era.


It's possible that the piece is from either a brochure, or a similar wrapper, and happens to have part of the advertisement for that picture on the back.

Steve,

I thought it looked like an 1870 stamp. But I'm no stamp expert whatsoever. And by chance the postmark does not hit postcard (that can happen but more often both stamp and postcard or envelope are “hit” by postmark and (in stamp collecting terminology) are “married”.

Less concerned about postmark than... "IF" this stamp is from 1870, who would use to mail 24 years later?

Also, small dimension woodcuts with player portraits often appeared as illustrations in some sporting newspapers. Here’s a cut out pasted onto a scrapbook cover I remembered from Hunt (top right pic).

If any of these that are cancelled were still attached to postcard or envelope, the post mark would hit the postcard or envelope.

1870 Canada S#37 orange/red Queen Victoria stamp lot all used Varieties? This image and description came from eBay (bottom right)

The font is also different on both front and back. Good disccussion as the mystery continues.