The Cobb prototype was really fun to make; the huge size is a nice change of pace. The only problem is that I can’t decide which color sweater that I like best. What do you think? This week I will auction a red sweater version.  Click to visit our auctions in another window  here.

One can’t help but like the 1912 Boston Garter series. If they weren’t so darn rare and expensive I would love to collect them. Not only are they colorful and unusually large (8.5″ x 4.25″), the locker room concept and art are absolutely unique among early 20th century art cards. Check out these images:

In December we began work on our own Helmar version of this iconic set. Forty-two cards are scheduled to be in the series and we expect the paintings to take until the end of October to complete. The first few cards should be available in about two months. In the meantime, I thought that you might enjoy this sneak preview of the card back that I designed:

It was only after spending some time perusing the pages that I was able to figure out that it was assembled by one “Charles L. Fitz”.  A 1918 military furlough describes him as, “22 yrs, 5 feet 71/2 inches”. His complexion is said to be “ruddy” and he has brown eyes and dark brown hair. I imagine that he was very much the typical soldier. Luckily, on the back of one piece of paper I was able to find his address: 952 Van Dyke Avenue.

That address places him downtown, just a long block off Jefferson Street. Jefferson was in effect the first major street in Detroit, the first off the river and it winds through downtown and the early neighborhoods, more or less hugging the flow of the river. Here’s a photo of Charles Fitz’s home as it looks today, a century later:

And then this odd scrapbook fell into my hands.

It happened on a gloomy, cold Saturday evening last December. I received a call from someone that I hadn’t heard from in a number of years. He said that he had run across an item that brought me to mind, and that it was something that he knew I just had to have. In fact, he said, I might be the only person in the Detroit area that would appreciate it. He wanted to show it to me and was, in fact, calling from my driveway.

Oh boy.

So I invited him in and, after some small talk, he thrust an old blue scrapbook into my hands. At first glance, and second glance for that matter, it looked pretty boring. Nevertheless, I bought it from him, thinking that it would join all the other unread books in the basement.

Recently, though, I’ve been leafing through it and find it to be intriguing from a baseball history perspective. I’ll write more of that later, but for now here is a photo of “the book”: