2-part question on old Mastro catalogs (1997, 1998)

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Posted By: Howard W. Rosenberg

For a series of books I've been writing, all on 19th-century baseball, I've been haphazardly learning of the range of 19th-century pictures, artifacts and documents that have appeared in old memorabilia catalogs beyond items that are easy to find (like Old Judge and Allen & Ginter images). For my second book, featuring Mike "King" Kelly, for example, I got sidetracked in searching for an image that someone told me was possibly at the San Francisco Public Library when, in reality it apparently was not, and had appeared in an old Mastro catalog. I did not learn of the image's appearance in the catalog until it was too late.

1. My short request is that I live in the D.C. area (Northern Virginia) and would love to be contacted by someone near me who is teeming with (and does not have buried in their backyard) old Mastro catalogs for my possible perusal, in particular Nov. 1997, July 1998, June 1999 and March 2000; I think I've pretty much seen the rest. Two other catalogs I haven't seen and which have 19th-century content are Sotheby’s of March 1993 and April 1994.

2. My more complicated request, in case no one were to contact me who lives near me, would be to find someone anywhere (except maybe abroad) who might methodically glance through one or more of the old catalogs for me to let me know what's in there of a 19th-century nature beyond the usual fare.

I could reciprocate in any number of ways.

Regards,
Howard W. Rosenberg
(703) 841-9523 telephone
howieanson@yahoo.com e-mail