Dating game tickets

[birdman42]

Is there a secret to dating tickets? Here's one that's supposed to be from 1924.

http://tinyurl.com/mlhq9r

What about the ticket indicates that? I know the price gives a range, and Washington's grandstand tickets were up to $1.35 by 1935. But could this be from game #61 in 1923? in 1926? It's hard to believe that the serial number records still exist from back then.

Thanks,

Bill

[GrayGhost]

Good question. Im kind of curious too.

[MVSNYC]

scott- i was just about to post the same exact response...

bill- i've always wondered this as well, great question.

[barrysloate]

I too am curious. Often tickets can be dated somewhat accurately by whose name appears on the bottom, but Clark Griffith doesn't help. And many tickets at least have a date printed on it (seldom a year), so that is at least a clue. This one has nothing except Game #61. Something tells me this may be be a dubious dating.

[canjond]

Just a guess but maybe a combination of the ticket price, and the game number (in this case 61) can narrow down the year?

[bigtrain]

If you go to retrosheet.com, you can look up schedules for each team and the game number for each team for each year. It appears that in 1924, Washington played its 72nd game on June 24 not its 61st. In fact #61 was away at St. Louis so this ticket cannot be from 1924. Washington was home vs. Cleveland for its game # 61 in both 1923 and 1925.

[barrysloate]

Just as I suspected! As so often happens, given a few possible dates, the owner (or grader) assumes it must be the most historically important one. I've seen it many times.

[ibuysportsephemera]

I have been collecting ticket stubs for 25+ years and it is very difficult to place an exact date on the older undated ticket stubs. There are great sites to help (retrosheet being one of them) but it takes quite a bit of effort without any clues.

Jeff

[MVSNYC]

not to further complicate things, but doesn't game #61 refer to the 61st HOME game, NOT the 61st game overall for the season?