1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Carte-de-Visite with Harry Wright

Sold For:

$105,000

Year:

1869

Auction:

2021 Summer

Lot #:

14

Category:

Pre-1900 Baseball Cards (1830-1899)

Extraordinary team composite carte-de-visite featuring the first professional baseball team - the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. This extremely rare style CDV features eight identified oval portraits of players in street clothes surrounding a larger photo of team captain Harry Wright in uniform in the center. The surrounding players, each identified under his oval photo, are G. Wright, Gould, Waterman, Allison, Brainard, McVey, Leonard and Sweasey. Photographer "D. R. Town, Rockford, Ills." is marked along the bottom on the front. It is interesting to note that photographer D. R. Town also produced other CDV cards featuring baseball subjects during this era. The reverse of the card is blank. This is an extremely rare 1869 Red Stockings CDV, far rarer than the traditional CDV and trade-card team pose usually seen. In fact, during the past forty years, we have seen a total of exactly three examples of this card. One example was offered at auction over fifteen years ago and was trimmed. The other appeared as Lot 799 in the 1991 Copeland auction at Sotheby's, where it sold at that time for $11,000. When offered in the Copeland sale, it was at that time the only example known. This third is the offered example that was discovered in 2005 by a noncollecting family in Florida as part of a circa 1870 photo album containing approximately 100 period CDVs of various subjects. We are very familiar with this particular card as this is the third time we have had the privilege of offering it. This card originally appeared as Lot 79 in REA's Spring 2005 auction before being reconsigned as Lot 26 in REA's Spring 2013 auction. This is one of our favorite nineteenth-century cards and it is a privilege to have the opportunity to offer it! This example of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings CDV is by far the finest of the three examples known. The Copeland example, as can be seen in the Sotheby's catalog photo, was somewhat faded. The photo quality of this example is extraordinary, displaying superb clarity and contrast. The players' names below the portraits are all perfectly legible. There is a slight crease in the upper left corner (affecting the photo surface only, not the mount), otherwise the card is in Near Mint condition with a clean reverse. This is a spectacular example of one of the nineteenth century's rarest and most important cards, featuring baseball's first professional team, the legendary 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. Opening Bid $25,000.