- October 13, 2010
A rare find of a 1916 Sporting News M101-5 uncut sheet was announced by David J. Rosenberg of DJR Auctions.
For over 50 years, the framed uncut sheet hung undisturbed in a small town saloon less than 300 miles from Chicago.
For the last few decades, the sheet was carefully stored in a private residence, before recently being discovered and offered for sale.
The discovery began with a chance phone call from a non-collector living in a rural town in the Midwest inquiring about the authenticity and value of his "old framed sheet of 200 baseball players".
The names of the players read like a who's who of the earliest heroes of our national pastime - Shoeless Joe Jackson, Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, Casey Stengel, Jim Thorpe, Honus Wagner and the list goes on featuring the complete 200 card M101-5 set.
Within a few days of the initial phone call, David traveled to the Midwest to inspect, purchase, safely package and ship the 43’’ x 27.5’’ uncut sheet.
Upon viewing the sheet in person and removing it from the frame, it was confirmed that the sheet was printed on original card stock.
Immediately, the questions arose as to the history and genealogy of the sheet.
In an attempt to learn more information about the origin, a message board posting was placed on Net54Baseball.com.
The subsequent research resembled an archaeological dig.
To establish the origin of this unique uncut sheet, the Chicago Examiner logo and pencil date on the reverse side were the necessary clues.
The Chicago Public Library came to the rescue with a tremendous amount of data, including early Chicago Examiner issues.
The sheet's origin was confirmed by early 1916 Chicago Examiner advertisements and stories linking the Chicago Examiner to the Sporting News and the publisher / printer Mendelsohn.
In early 1916, the Examiner ran several advertisements offering readers M101-5 baseball cards and uncut sheets with a subscription to the paper.
This information confirmed that the Chicago Examiner was a distributor of M101-5 baseball cards and uncut sheets 94 years ago.
Finally, the significance of this find was confirmed.
A question still remains - display it or sell it?
For further information, please contact:
[email protected]