interesting Old Judge dates

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Posted By: John/z28jd

While looking at players stats from 1887 i noticed some interesting things that might show approx. time some of the OJ pics were taken:
John Roach,played one game career,May 14th but is pictured in a NY uniform on 5 or so poses.Bill George joined the team on May 11th and also has cards in the set

Emil Geiss,pitched one career game for Chicago on May 18th and is also pictured with Chicago while a pitcher named Shadow Pyle played his last game on May 13th and doesnt have a card

Larry Corcoran pitched his last game May 20th for indianapolis.Lev Shreve joined the team shortly after and his first OJ cards are 1888 with Indianapolis

Alex McKinnon played his last career game June 4th for Pittsburgh while Jocko Fields made his debut on May 31st.Ed Beecher played significant time with Pitt starting at the end of June,1887 but doesnt have a card

A few other players made their debut or their career ended within early May(april 30 for one player)and mid June(Kid Madden,Bill Kreig,Mike Mattimore,Marty Sullivan)

Just found it interesting,and thought i would share it.

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Posted By: The Other One (Julie)

which he left at the end of '86...

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Posted By: Joe_G.

Good post John, this goes along with your discussion. 1887 Old Judges can be split into four distinct groups as follows (in chronological order):

Script (un-numbered) - First issued and considered most rare 1887 cards. 23 different baseball subjects depicted on 33 different cards including the 16 Spotted Ties & 3 Kelly cards (all with Chicago).

Short Numbered - Sometimes tricky to ID as they can be found with the name in script (as above) or typewritten with and without numbers. However, in all cases, the 30 different poses depicting 17 different players of this type can be found with a number in the upper right hand corner without a leading "0". This subset is comprised of the 13 Browns Champions, 7 Kelly poses (all with Boston), 8 of McCormick, Ned Williamson with mascot, and one with just the mascot.

"Long" or "0" Numbered - Type 1 - By far the largest 1887 group consisting of 117 different players with total pose count at 505! These appear to be the most common and are easily identified with the leading "0" in front of the number in the photo area (usually upper right hand corner). All 8 National League teams and Brooklynn from the American Association are pictured with anywhere from 9 - 15 players from each team. The Detroits I collect from 1887 are found in this subset. It should be noted that some cards have been found without the number (most commonly seen on Philadelphia & Washington cards, ~15% can be found with the number missing).

"Long" or "0" Numbered - Type 2 - 64 players, 238 poses from the Type 1 cards were re-issued near the end of 1887 in a new format called the Type 2 cards. All these cards can be found in the LOC on uncut sheets. The leading "0" number is now below the picture along with the name all in script. Unlike the first three types where "OLD JUDGE CIGAREETS" is usually found as a semicircle black band with pointed ends, the advertisement is usually found in a black rectangle near the top of the photo. 5 National League teams were issued Type 2 cards; it is believed that with more time Goodwin would have likely issued nearly all type 1 cards as type 2s. It's quite a feat they managed to issue as many cards as they did in the amazing 1887 run.

It should also be noted that significant overlap of the first 3 types exist, there are surviving examples of uncut sheets that show all of the first three types on the same sheet. Most of this information and more can be found in Lew Lipset's "Encyclopedia of 19th Century Cards".

Feel free to post a card if you'd like and identify it.

Regards,
Joe Gonsowski