November 30, 2017: Sports & Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/30/2017
This is an absolutely stunning image of the great Ban Johnson, pictured here in the studio pose so iconic for baseball historians, with the first President of the American League presented in one of the finest collectibles of his career. Regarded among the finest large-format baseball collectibles in the early years of the 20th Century – and this in an era that included the remarkable T3 Turkey Red cabinet cards – the fabled M101-2 Sporting News Supplements feature sepia-toned images of professional players on a heavy cardboard stock, most typically with blank backs. The elegant roughly 7 1/2-by-9 3/4-inch photograph includes printing on a reversed type black box “Supplement to The Sporting News St. Louis, October 14, 1909” on the top. The player’s name – in this instance legendary Hall of Famer Executive Byron Bancroft Johnson and “President American League” – are printed in the same fashion on the bottom. Presented here is a BGS 4 (VG-Ex) example of the series; the supplement is No. 14, though the cards themselves are unnumbered.
1909-13 Sporting News Supplements M101-2 Ban Johnson AL PRES/10/14/09 BGS 4
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