Revisiting the 1888 Davenport Composite

[prewinter]

A while back I started a thread asking for help identifying players from an 1888 Davenport team card. REA auctioned a Davenport Team Cabinet card in the spring of 2015 (https://robertedwardauctions.com/auc...m-cabinet-card), in which the players were identified. These players played for Davenport's club in the Central Interstate League, which disbanded in early August 1888.

REA then auctioned a second Davenport cabinet card in the summer of 2019 (https://robertedwardauctions.com/auc...m-cabinet-card), with different players, who were not identified. This was the one I was working on. The description suggested this card was released at a different point in the summer, and as Davenport had a second club later in the summer, in the Western Association, it seemed reasonable to start there.

After considerable effort and research, I was never able to match more than about half the players with known members of that club. I am now of the opinion that this is because the second composite card does not depict the actual club, but rather was a mockup to show what the final one would look like. A view of a section of detail on both cards (from roughly the lower left corner) is shown below. It can be seen that the detail is identical between the two cards. While it could be that they reused the design from the first club for the second, I think that is not likely. There just aren't enough matches with Western League players for the unidentified group to be that club. (Plus there are complications when trying to determine when it would have been done, during the roughly one month the Davenport club existed in the Western Association.) And the first club (in the CISL) didn't turn over enough players for it to be some iteration of that club.

So I am left with the conclusion that the card sold by REA in 2019 is not a card for the actual club, but a proof of design. Still cool, but not real players. I post this here for anyone who might be interested or who might consider buying that second one at some point in the future.

Left is the second one, from 2019, while the right is the earlier one, from 2015.