T206 Red Murray - Looking Up??

[ctownboy]

My question is not about his eyes but the two different sweaters he is wearing. Why didn't (couldn't) they have shown him in a single sweater? It is obvious they took the upper half of Murray and put him on top of the upper half of some other player but why?

David

[tedzan]

I have 4 of these Murray cards......an EPDG, Piedmont 460, Sovereign 460 and a Sweet Caporal 460.

Three of these cards have his eyes looking straight ahead. The Sovereign has his BLUE eyes offset to
the top. The BLUE background is off-register on this card. The other three have perfect BLUE register.

Mike......Check your card's BLUE background register. It most likely is offset.


TED Z

[mdschulze]

Ted you were dead on. After I looked closely with a magnifier, the blue profile is up and to the right just a hair. (By the way, mine is a SC 350/460). Thanks for everyone who posted the other Murrays as well.

David, I never paid close attention but I'm with you. It appears to me that they merged two different images. I'm curious as well if any member knows the history on this.

Thanks guys! -Mike

[jlynch1960]

Originally Posted by ctownboy

My question is not about his eyes but the two different sweaters he is wearing.

David

This was the Giant's style sweaters around 1909-11. Pictures are hard to find. Here's one of Mathewson from 1909 - although it's available in a larger format on Wikipedia under the "1912 World Series" article.

Actually, many of the portraits (cap, no cap) - Bridwell, Crandall, Doyle, Mcgraw, Murray, Schlei, Seymour, Wiltse show the sweaters. Kind of surprising no one has a set of studio portraits on which the lithographs were no doubt based.


mathewsonsweater.htm.jpg

[ullmandds]

I've always wondered about those sweaters too...what a fashion foul!

[ctownboy]

Thanks jlynch1960,

I have the T206 Doyle (but not THE Doyle) and he had that same looking sweater. I thought it was some sort of mistake by the printer now I see it was not a mistake by the printer but a mistake by someone else (maybe the designer had ADD?).

Oh well, now I know it wasn't just me who thought these looked odd and that there was a reason why these cards looked the way they do. Learned something new today.

Thanks again,

David

PS, has any of these sweaters ever come up for sale? Maybe they look better live and in person than they do on the cards and in that photo of Mathewson.