1913 Yale-Harvard Baseball Ticket - Legit or Not?

[Ray Van]

Hi everyone,
I need some help determining whether this is legit or not. I'm not an expert in old tickets, but I would guess that tickets from the early 1900's would be printed on thinner paper, not thick cardboard.

Any assistance is appreciated.

Thanks,
Ray

[drc]

I'm no ticket expert, but had some 1890s baseball tickets that were on very thin cardstock. Perhaps paper.

[vintagesportflips]

Hello Ray,
The ticket looks good to me, as I've had a number of tickets from this era, both football and baseball. The tickets were made with paper adhered to a cardstock. Some of the more ornate tickets, with ornate designs on back, had paper adhered to the cardstock on both sides - the front with the date and game information, and the back with the design. There have been a number of these tickets on ebay in the past year, that all orginated from the same ticket company scrapbook find.

[Ray Van]

Here are a couple other examples that I recently purchased. The Yale-Columbia is for a Football game played at American League (Hilltop) Park so it will fit into my Highlanders/Yankees collection. The two baseball tickets appear to have the paper affixed to thicker stock on the one side while the football ticket has it on both sides with the ornate design on the back. The red ticket has some punched perforations through the ticket halves, but the other tickets do not. I'm just wondering how easy it would be to tear the thick ticket without perforations? All of that was raising red flags that they were maybe not legit.

Ray

[vintagesportflips]

I am not an ebay seller, so the ones on ebay aren't mine, but I am familiar with them. These were proof tickets found in a large turn of the century scrapbook. The tickets were kept by the ticket printing company as an example of the different types of tickets they made, and my guess was used to show prospective schools what they could do. My thoughts on the lack of perforations was that this was something done after the printing process, probably by a tool that once clamped upon a ticket created perforations. That just a theory on my part.

[vintagesportflips]

Actually after giving it more thought, and maybe ticket collectors know better, I wonder if full tickets of this time period had perforations? Becuase most of the partial tickets from the 1900 time frame I've had had very uneven tears - so perhaps the ticket taker would just fold and tear aiming for that dotted line.

[scooter729]

I've got a number of Harvard football stubs from the 1900-1910 range (not from this scrapbook find), and the stubs definitely are perfectly torn. There definitely appears to be some fine perforations on them.

Here are a couple of those stubs, along with one of these proof tickets as well. They all appear to have had perforations for the stub. (Sorry for the crappy pic - it's the best I can do at work right now!)

[smotan_02]

Most early football games were simply a printed card stock ticket that was torn in half. However, Philadelphia was home to some of the early high visability football games and likewise their tickets tend to be of higher quality. I believe that many of the nicer tickets Ive seen were for games played at Franklin Field from 1890s-1910s.

Thanks to a heads up from Keith, here is my earliest full ticket from Franklin Field. The perforation is pretty visible on this one.

[smotan_02]

Probably shouldnt limit it to Franklin Field...but more to Franklin Field, Soldier's Field, and Yale Field. They tend to draw the crowds.

[Cappelli]

Originally Posted by Ray Van

Hi everyone,
I need some help determining whether this is legit or not. I'm not an expert in old tickets, but I would guess that tickets from the early 1900's would be printed on thinner paper, not thick cardboard.

Any assistance is appreciated.

Thanks,
Ray

Hi Ray,
Here is a Ticket from May 31, 1913
Princeton vs Yale
It is on a thicker stock 1913 Princeton.jpg

[bigfanNY]

First I do not like the op Ticket. I had at one time a run of Harvard Yale Stubs from the late 1890's to the early teens. And this one dose not look right. Harvard Vs Yale was a big deal right from the start. Red vs Blue and the ticket backs had a had a very specific design. If you search ebay you will see what I mean.
J

[smotan_02]

I believe the main reason why the OPs ticket is so drastically different is because it was a baseball ticket. The football tickets were much more ornate.

[megalimey]

Originally Posted by kjjavic

I am not an ebay seller, so the ones on ebay aren't mine, but I am familiar with them. These were proof tickets found in a large turn of the century scrapbook. The tickets were kept by the ticket printing company as an example of the different types of tickets they made, and my guess was used to show prospective schools what they could do. My thoughts on the lack of perforations was that this was something done after the printing process, probably by a tool that once clamped upon a ticket created perforations. That just a theory on my part.

PERFORATION ON tickets and many other paper products first began in the late 1870's in the US , the Perforation process was part of the printing done with a long comb like metal blade that indented the paper , the press sheet of up to 20-30 full tickets would pass below the blade stopping as the blade came down.
the perf was added so the turnstile ticket collector, bus driver , train guard, could return the rain check part in timely and neater fashion , which was also proof of entry, seat position and a raincheck if needed .
many people or ticket collectors would fold at the perf line to make it easier to tear evenly , obviously judging by the 1000's of uneven tears this may have not been a common practice ,

[frankbmd]

1923 Real stub. Dotted line visible on one side, but not perforated. Appears to be paper mounted on thick card stock. I did not attend this contest but Yale won 27-0



1968 Real stub. 45 years later Harvard beat Yale 29-29. A sad day in New Haven indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sveyK5xFHzU