Digital image of a carte de visite featuring a sepia-tone photo of a staged baseball game. On the reverse is written “A Game of Base Ball Hoboken N.J.” C. 1864-1866.
Digital image of a carte de visite featuring a sepia-tone photo of a staged baseball game. On the reverse is written “A Game of Base Ball Hoboken N.J.” C. 1864-1866.
Entry/Object ID
2022.010.0001
Description
Digital image of a carte de visite featuring a sepia-tone photo of a staged baseball game. On the reverse is written “A Game of Base Ball Hoboken N.J.”
A photography tax stamp also on the reverse places the carte as being produced between 1864-66.
Dimensions: 4 x 2 3/8 inches; the photograph is 3 x 2 1/8 inches.
Donor Jonathan Popovich, a collector of 19th Century baseball uniforms and an author of two books on the subject, researched the image and the card in depth. His findings are that the photo was indeed taken on Hoboken’s Elysian Fields, making it the only known photograph of baseball in Hoboken in the 19th Century.
You can view his presentation on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/cwJGWeWDHPA
