This went for big money, but was it real? Sockalexis Postcard

[rhettyeakley]

Packs, basically you know a real or fake Real Photo Postcard when you see it, especially after handling and seeing literally a few million of them (obviously not just baseball ones). The photo appearance on front is consistent w/ many RPPC's that I have handled and the back is correct and even has that "honest" age to it that is nearly impossible to recreate (people try to recreate it but it never really turns out right). Basically, there was nothing from this postcard physically that would indicate it was a fake piece--as it is NOT a known postcard it would take a pretty good amount of work to fabricate something like this and then with that much work we would expect to see many more of them popping up. Also the fact that this is from a location in Maine w/in a few hours drive of Bangor also helps lend a bit of credability, combined with the fact that the seller wasn't trying to use any puffery (obviously they had no idea how significant this find was.)

This postcard is a great example of how the history of the players we follow is constantly changing. The conventional wisdom based on "known" accounts indicated that Sockalexis never played or participated in organized baseball in any way after 1903 was wrong, this postcard is actually helping to fill in that dark gap at the end of his life where we really don't have much to go on. Most of what is written about him during this period is based on oral history and accounts of others, which are often wrong or imbellished over the years.

Another recent example of our efforts to fill in gaps in the history of baseball is that Jim Thorpe postcard I recently came across (see 1910 Rocky Mount thread). Up to this point I had doubted whether there was any surviving photographic evidence of Thorpe during his Rocky Mount, NC playing days during 1909-10. He had withdrawn from Carlisle during that time and wasn't known throughout the country until he re-enrolled at Carlisle in 1911 and became famous that year for his football play, prior to that he was merely a promising young Indian football & track star (but wasn't a household name by any stretch of the imagination).

-Rhett

Andrew, a member of this board did end up winning the piece.