My trip to the Portland Antiques Expo….made four incredible finds!

[vintagesportflips]

Great find Carlton and story. I am sure I would have walked right by that piece without noticing the Yale/sports connection, good eye. I love the high wheel bicycler in the scene.

[slantycouch]

Wow - great story... thanks for sharing! I enjoyed the read.

[Oldtix]

Wonderful to share this experience with you, Carlton! Thanks!

[prewarsports]

Carlton

I wish I had known you were coming up. I always go to the Summer show so next year we'll need to hook up for a hot dog or something.

I also did VERY well at the show with both Sports and Non-Sports items. The Spring and Fall shows are not as good but the Summer one is always good.

I was walking around outside at the same time as you and probably walked right past you several times!

Rhys

[Vintagecatcher]

I wonder if a Harvard alum is enjoying his Yale print that they won in Hunt's auction. Comparing the two items, it looks as if the Hunt print has been "downsized" to fit in it's original frame.

O for 3 by my scoring.


Patrick

[jthorn]

"The Critic" of March 14, 1891 has this notice:
"An exhibition of seventy water-colors by Mr. W. C. Bauer closed at Klackner's on March 11. Most were of Long Island landscapes. 'Near Sundown, Winter,' on a snow-covered road leading to a distant village; ' The Causeway, East Hampton, L. I.'; ' After the Storm,' a river view in winter; and ' Woodland at Evening,'were among the more attractive. Mr. Klackner has just published a large and well finished photogravure of Mr. A. C. Howland's picture ' The Yale Fence,' with portraits of many well-known college men."

There appears to have been a limited edition numbered to 90, as this notice appeared in an auction in 2005:

210. (2) PRINTS OF YALE COLLEGE: ETCHING "YALE CAMPUS" W/ NEW HAVEN GREEN & YALE FENCE BY ELLEN OAKFORD-'88, FRAMED (12" X 15 3/4"), ALONG W/ ENGRAVING "THE YALE FENCE" BY A.C. HOWLAND #89/90, COPYRIGHT BY C. KLACKNER-1891 NY, SEPARATED FROM FRAME (19" X 32 1/2")

Last, this ad appeared in The University Magazine in 1891:

"Fac-simile in photogravure from the original painting by A.C. Howlan, N.A.

"Size of plate 20 x 33-1/2 inches. Printed on paper 33 x 45 inches. Signed Artist's Proofs (limited to 100 impressions) $20. Prints on India paper, $10.

"Published by C. Klackner, 5 E. 17th Street, New York."



john thorn

[CarltonHendricks]

Thank you so much everyone for your kind words, glad you enjoyed it.

Rhys, Would have been a pleasure to see you again, I think last was a couple Nationals ago...I look forward to next year...Hey let's see those finds!

John Thorn, Thanks very much for your posts...very informative, great to know all that, wow even the original prices...good dig'n

In the 19th century the Yale fence was a meet up gathering place for students that apparently was so popular or highly regarded that it took on institution status. Recently I did a feature on a 1888 cabinet photo of Yale baseball team mates Amos Alonzo Stagg and Jesse Chase Dann which you can read here. The photo was shot in a studio but they are sitting and leaning on a fence. Apparently the Yale fence was so popular the photographer Pach Brothers made a facsimile in their studio and incorporated it into photos.





Chapter two of the 1895 book “Yale Yarns” is probably the best available source of information on the Yale fence. The fence was taken down in 1888 to make room for improvements to the campus, and the impact wasn’t taken lightly. Below are some excerpts, from chapter 2 titled “The Old Fence. Thanks to the internet you can read the entire Yale Yarns book on line in this link. Also above is a poster that advertised the book and as you can see the fence is front and center in the illustration. Below the poster is a large print of the same illustration which I saw at the 2005 National in the Hunt Auctions booth, which you can read about at the bottom of the page in this link

THE OLD FENCE.
Up to the time when the march of improvement began, which has ended with the beautiful Vanderbilt Hall and the complete enclosure of the campus, the fence, from the path near the corner on College Street around the corner of Chapel and up to South College, was the one great institution of Yale. Tradition fades quickly in college, and the student of to-day is inclined to smile at the expression of regret for the fence's loss to which the old grad. is apt to give vent on returning to New Haven….

The dear old fence !

On it men crammed for recitation ; read the newspapers ; interchanged stories ; gossiped ; talked athletics ; got acquainted ; sung songs; flirted with passing girls; lived. The fence over in front of Durfee is something like it in a feeble sort of way, but it 's not quite the same thing. There was always some wandering musician who played, or a boot-black who shone for five cents, or an influx of grads. up from New York, or the passing of a pretty girl, to create a diversion on the old fence. It was the centre of the good-hearted, manly, democratic Yale, and when it was taken away there were many forebodings by the grads.