Lot # 49: 1869 Harper’s Weekly Cincinnati Red Stocking Base-Ball Club Woodcut Illustrations (2) Plus Currier & Ives Elysian Fields Vintage Print

Trace the roots of professional baseball, when you examine these (2) 1869 Harper’s Weekly Cincinnati Red Stocking Base-Ball Club woodcut illustrations. Both 11-1/2” x 16-1/2” pages have precisely placed holes along the left edge, indicating they were removed from a bound collection of the popular 19th Century periodical. Other than the binding holes and general light peripheral wear, which could easily be matted over, these antique pages are both fairly crisp and attractive with distinct images.

Featured are: July 3, 1969 “The Picked Nine of the Red Stocking Base-Ball Club”; and July 24, 1869 “Presentation of a Champion Bat to the Red Stocking Base-Ball Club”. Both of these illustrations are highly covered, and both are considered tough acquisitions.

Led by Hall of Fame brothers George and Harry Wright, this 1869 Red Stocking team is regarded as the first professional baseball squad. The team disbanded after the 1869 season, and the Wrights reformed the team as the Boston Red Stockings in 1871. Today this team is known as the Atlanta Braves.

Also present is a Currier & Ives “The American National Game of Baseball” 12” x 16” vintage print (not an original) depicting the famous 1865 championship game between the Mutual Club of Manhattan and the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ. Also crisp and appealing, this print shows signs of being previously framed, with a small bit of mounting tape extending onto the obverse at top-left.

The size/weight of this item requires that there will be an additional shipping charge for this lot.