March 19, 2020: Spring Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/19/2020
U.S. surveyor and baseball enthusiast. Cartwright was a founder of the amateur New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club and chaired the commission that established baseball's official rules. These included the requirement of tagging out a base runner rather than hitting him with a thrown ball and fixing the distance between bases at 90 ft (27.4 m). The first game under the newly codified rules was apparently played in Hoboken, N.J., in 1846. RARE two-page letterpress letter written & signed by "Alx. C. Cartwright", 8.5x10.5, Honolulu, H.I. May 25 1880, custom matted overall size 18.5x12.5. Of historical note, this letter comes from the archives of Alexander Cartwright, and Barry Halper obtained this and additional letterpress letters directly from the Carwright family. Alexander Cartwright used such letterpress letters to keep a personal archive of his correspondence. Cartwright would press a freshly written letter against a blank sheet of onionskin paper and then save these unique letterpress letters to provide him with a record of his correspondence. In the 19th Century, long before copy machines, letterpress letters were an option for letter writers wishing to keep an exact impression of an outgoing letter.
Alexander Cartwright Two-Page Letterpress Document (1880)
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