2019 Summer Premium Live and Catalog Auction Lots 1-82 Close Aug 1- 83-end close 8/10
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/11/2019
Encapsulated and assessed "Authentic" by SGC. Hall of Famer. This extraordinary carte de visite brings forth a composite photograph holding one hundred portrait likenesses of high-ranking Civil War-era military men. The reverse side provides a numerical key to their identities, and reveals that #55 is Union Major General Abner Doubleday. Thanks to the fanciful imaginings of an over-zealous subordinate officer, for years it was believed that Doubleday was the "father" of baseball. Eventual research has since eliminated this as even a remote possibility, but not before Doubleday's familiar visage had been firmly entwined in the creation myth and cherished tradition of our favorite sport. While Doubleday's relationship with baseball is now just an anecdotal aside, it is still a relationship. The two will be forever linked, if not in story then at least in the site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York – Doubleday's home town. A beautifully focused, historically inspiring souvenir piece.