LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2006 October Signature Sports Auction #705  / 

19445

1901 Pittsburgh Pirates Signed Baseball PSA/DNA

Currency:USD Category:Sports - Cards & Fan Shop / Sports - Autographs (Original) Start Price:7,500.00 USD Estimated At:15,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
1901 Pittsburgh Pirates Signed Baseball PSA/DNA
<B>1901 Pittsburgh Pirates Reunion Team Signed Baseball with Chesbro & Oversized Photograph of Event.</B></I> It was the Golden Anniversary of the National League that brought together Pittsburgh first ever Championship team for a reunion at a lavish banquet thrown by team owner Barney Dreyfuss at Pittsburgh's Hotel Schenley. An oversized photograph (12x20") captures the scene, with four long tables surrounding what appears to be an enormous cake in the shape of a baseball diamond. Huge banners line the walls, celebrating past Championships and announcing the Golden Jubilee of the National League. In the deep background can be spotted the members of the 1901 squad, the same gentlemen who have applied their signatures to the ONL (Heydler) ball we present in this lot. Toughest of them all, and all but impossible on a baseball, is Hall of Fame pitcher Jack Chesbro (5/10), who would pass away just six years after this event at age fifty-seven, leaving behind the thinnest of autograph supplies. Joining Chesbro both on this baseball and in the Hall of Fame are Fred Clarke (9/10) and Honus Wagner (8/10). Also here are Chief Zimmer (9/10), George Yeager (5/10), Deacon Philllippe (10/10), Jesse Tannehill (4/10), Kitty Bransfield (9/10), Ginger Beaumont (9/10), Jimmy Burke (6/10) and three others that we cannot discern due to fading or handwriting. Surely it goes without saying that baseballs signed by teams appearing during the first decade of the twentieth century are all but nonexistent (even those signed at a later date), so this should be seen by serious collectors as a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The photograph (which presents marvelously with chipping and wear at borders only) and the baseball derive from the personal collection of 1925 Pirates Champion catcher Johnny Gooch. <I>LOA from PSA/DNA.</B></I>
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