Candy Cummings

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Posted By: Phil Garry

Does anyone know of any other career contemporary individul or team card issues picturing Candy Cummings other than the 1875 Hartford CDV?

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

There's a mammoth plate composite of the 1873 Baltimore team which depicts Candy Cummings (along with Lipman Pike and Cal McVey). The piece consists of Cdvs of each player (11 in total) mounted underneath an overlay with caligraphy indentifying the players and the team. It is pictured in Stephen Wong's book "Smithsonian Baseball". Here is an image of the photo as it appears in the book. Candy Cummings is at 6 o'clock, Lipman Pike is to his immediate left and Cal McVey is in the center. The photo contrast of the original is a lot better than appears here. The writing at the very bottom is from another illustration.

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Posted By: Phil Garry

That's a really cool piece, Corey, thanks for sharing. That must be the earlest Cummings appearance on a baseball collectible and I imagine that it would cost quite a bit if it ever became available for sale.

I am hoping to find a more cost conscious alternative to the Hartford CDV.......

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

Phil,

The Hartford and Baltimore are the only two photographic images of Cummings of which I am aware.

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Posted By: Jimmy Leiderman

Corey, how about the tintype showing a 'supposed' Cummings with the Star of Brooklyn?

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

Not Cummings!! This view I believe represents (overwhelming) majority consensus.

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Posted By: barrysloate

The tintype is definitely not Cummings.

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Posted By: Rhys

I had always been under the impression that the Star photo was not Cummings as well.

Rhys

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Posted By: Jimmy Leiderman

That's what I thought.

Was this the sentiment when Rucker sold the tintype in '95?
(Don't know if it was offered previously elsewhere)

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Posted By: Mark Fimoff

The thing to note is that the Star player has a very deep distinct horizontal crease about 1/3 of the way down from his mouth to the bottom of his chin. Cummings does not.

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Posted By: Mark

Note that Rucker used the Brooklyn Star player image, ID'd as Cummings, as in his 2002 Brooklyn Dodgers book.

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Posted By: Ken Wirt

I'm thinking that young man's image was also identified as Cummings in the Ken Burns Baseball documentary.

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Posted By: Mark

This shows the viral like effect of an "authoritative" but wrong photo ID - in addition to the Dodgers book, it appeared in Ken Burn's documentary and book, in David Nemec's Great Encyclopedia of 19thC Major League Baseball, SABR's spring 1984 issue of The National Pastime, and I would guess a few other places.

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

It was used by Ken Burns in his documentary based on Rucker's representation it was Cummings. I had extensive dealings with Burns's people at the time as they used a number of my images in their documentary. While I don't remember if I spoke to Burns himself or his executive producer about the "Cummings" tintype, I do remember quite vividly letting it be known that Mark Rucker might be the only person in the hobby who opines it is Cummings. The Hartford and Baltimore images were known at the time, and Burns really disappointed me by his use of that image.

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Posted By: Mark

Corey - thanks for the comment. I'm in the process of trying to get that image removed from the SABR Encyclopedia listing for Cummings. Before yesterday I had not been aware of it.