Tintype of Game Action

[molenick]

Very nice tintypes, Leon.

[darkhorse9]

Maybe I'm ignorant on such matters, but I don't see how the conclusion is made that the OP tintypes are from baseball at all.

I see a guy holding a stick and another crouched down. That could be any number of things. The other looks like a family photo.

What exactly am I missing?

[molenick]

The things that point to it being baseball are:

• The person in the background is crouching in a position and at a distance a catcher would have been doing in this time period

• The stick the person in the foreground is holding appears to have been "worked" rather than naturally occurring (it looks to be smooth, slightly tapered, and rounded)

• The clothes the person in the foreground is wearing (the striped pants, high socks, and white shirt with a kerchief/tie) are in line with a baseball player of this time

• The brick placed in the position it is in strikes me as an impromptu "home plate" used for the pose -- which is why I don't think this is an "action" shot but adds to why I do think it is a posed shot of a batter and catcher

The OP said the second photo "appears to be the same player with a group of people" so it is only a "baseball" tintype if you accept that this is a baseball uniform and that a baseball tintype is one that has any baseball content at all.

I suppose something else could be happening but I wouldn't speculate on what else that could be.

[SteveS]

I think it's pretty clearly a baseball tintype for the reasons Molenick mentioned. The reason I think it's during a game is because the catcher is crouching in the position where he'd be normally, rather than much closer as we see in the posed pictures. That said, I don't think the game was in play at that moment, as it would have been very difficult to capture movement with the tintype camera. I posted the other picture because it came from the same seller, and I think it's the same player depicted and the woman second from right appears to be holding a baseball. Other than that, that one is not necessarily a "baseball tintype," but I included it to perhaps help date the images. And, nice tintypes, Leon!