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I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the Harper's Weekly baseball engravings like the one below sell for? Are there any that are harder to find than others? Is there a list of the ones that were produced anywhere?
Probably the most famous one pictures the old Cincinnati Red Stockings team w/George & Harry WEright. I have seen that one a couple of times for around $50 - $100. I wouldn't think that many of the others would sell for more than that.
Lew Lipset's Encylopedia of Baseball Cards (1800s part) lists them.
To be technical, it's wood-engraving, not engraving. The two have a similar final look but are different in how they are made. You can also call the Harper's prints woodcuts, as wood-engraving is a type of woodcut.
Famous artists like Durer and Picasso made both engraving and woodcut prints, so both techniques were part of the standard repertoire.
Both printing techniques take great technical skill and the designs were created onto the plate by hand.
This message has been edited by dereb1 on Apr 24, 2008 2:05 PM This message has been edited by dereb1 on Apr 24, 2008 1:56 PM This message has been edited by dereb1 on Apr 24, 2008 1:55 PM This message has been edited by dereb1 on Apr 24, 2008 1:51 PM
If lucky you could get a complete book for 100.00, but these are sometimes common to find separate
Take care
Jimmy
This message has been edited by boxingbaseballgolf33 on Apr 24, 2008 2:23 PM This message has been edited by boxingbaseballgolf33 on Apr 24, 2008 2:22 PM
There are also Leslie's Illustrated baseball woodcuts, with Leslie's Illustrated being a similar type of magazine to Harper's. The famous 1860s James Creighton woodcut was in Leslie's, and I think it's a 1880s-90s Leslie's that has a large Buck Ewing woodcut in catcher's gear on the cover (might be a Harper's though).
This message has been edited by dereb1 on Apr 24, 2008 4:13 PM This message has been edited by dereb1 on Apr 24, 2008 3:07 PM This message has been edited by dereb1 on Apr 24, 2008 3:05 PM
I don't think that I have ever seen any that were period, I think that it is just something that the guys that sell old ads and cutout's like to do to enhance the appearance. Ususally it does.
Any hand coloring is put on afterwards and unofficially. Desirability is a matter of taste. Some want things uncolored, while some will pay extra is the coloring looks nice to them. The style of the above colors show that they are not from the 1800s.
But on some of the older tintypes they have been colored in, in the same period of mfg.....It would seem to make sense that these could have been done that way too? I am just fishing here and making an analogy....
