Babe Ruth and the Mystery of the 1923 Lections Baseball Cards

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In the mid-1980s, American baseball card collectors were surprised to find a previously unknown group of baseball cards displayed at the Parsippany National card show. In 1997, a second group of these unusual cards showed up at auction. The origin of the "Lections" baseball cards is still shrouded in mystery. It's estimated that only 40-50 cards from the set still exist today - and an additional four Lections baseball cards have just been discovered from an upstate New York estate and are now being offered for sale in the Nine Caroline Antiques store. The exceedingly rare group includes a Babe Ruth baseball card, a Roger Hornsby baseball card, a Howard Ehmke baseball card, and a "Bob" Emil Meusel baseball card.

The Lections baseball cards date to around 1923. Each card is printed on a thick cardstock and features a black and white photograph of the featured player, with the name and team printed below. The rest of the card is printed in green or orange ink, with a drawing of a baseball game in progress to the right underneath "Lections / Trade Mark / B & B Co." The cards are blank on the back.

Almost all of the Lections baseball cards discovered so far are in well-loved (aka not very good) condition. Some of the cards, like the Roger Hornsby card offered for sale in our store, have punch holes. This may indicate that the cards were perhaps part of a redemption promotion at a candy store or toy store.

However, a first-hand account from a gentleman who actually collected Lections baseball cards in his youth sheds some additional light on the subject: the Lections baseball cards were probably handed out to children in conjunction with "election cards" handed out to adults at public events or fairs in Albany, New York. The grownups' election cards were handed out by public officials running for election. The Lections baseball cards were handed out to children at the same time, all in an attempt to win the support of both children and their voting parents. Since the cards were only handed out over the duration of a local fair (just a few days in a small area), their existence is very scarce and as such very rare.

Most excitingly, one of the Lections baseball cards discovered in this new group is that of the renowned Babe Ruth, the Great Bambino himself, the famed pitcher/outfielder for the New York Yankees (1920-34). Only seven PSA graded Babe Ruth Lections baseball cards are known to exist, and only one card is graded higher than our "Good 2" Babe Ruth baseball card.

This is an exciting group of Lections baseball cards. The cards came to us from an upstate New York estate, as befits a group of cards with a very specific and localized origin. Each of the Lections baseball cards has been graded by the PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator), the world's largest third-party sports card authentication service. All of the original 1923 Lections baseball cards can be found in our store by clicking here.

Jenness Cortez

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With the upcoming end to horse racing season in Saratoga, as proud upstate New Yorkers we have decided to share a few of the paintings in our inventory that are important to the racing culture.

Jenness Cortez (1944- ) is an upstate artist whose paintings depicting the athleticism of Saratoga's racing horses had made her a famous name in Realist art.

Cortez was born in 1944 in Frankfurt, Indiana. She began her art studies when she was 16, under the guidance of noted Dutch painter Antonius Raemakers. She attended the Art Students League of New York after graduating from the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, IN.

Following her formal education, Cortez moved to Albany, New York to work as a commercial and editorial illustrator for the biweekly community newspaper "The Washington Park Spirit." In 1974 Cortez was commissioned to create original paintings of endangered species in the Adirondack Mountains by the New York State Museum. Her paintings from that year are still apart of the Museum's permanent collection.
Cortez has been commissioned to create commemorative etchings of thoroughbred racing's Horse of the Year every year since 1981. This prints we have in our inventory are original works from Cortez spanning from the years 1983-1993.

Cortez's style is described as realist work that has been filtered through "the minds's eye."

Throughout the 1980s and her work in Saratoga, Cortez's fame gained momentum as she was commissioned on more commercial and gallery projects, which solidified her career as a prominent New York capital region artist.
In the mid 1990s, Cortez moved her interest to encompass landscapes and cityscapes, and more recently, still life.

Cortez is currently working on new projects from her studio in Averill Park, NY where her pieces are featured in she and her husband's gallery.

Own these original vintage estate-found prints from Jenness Cortez's Saratoga days: shop here. 

Vintage 1951 Amelia Opdyke Jones "Subway Sun" Ad Posters

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This is one of the more fun and interesting vintage finds we have seen recently: a set of four New York City subway ads printed in 1951. 

The set of 21" x 11" posters take the form of a newspaper header titled "The Subway Sun." Cartoonist Amelia Opdyke Jones (who always signed her work "Oppy") created these types of ads for the New York City Transit Authority in the 1940s and 1950s to promote good behavior and etiquette among subway users.
The New York Transit Authority originally hired Oppy to create cartoons to warm subway riders to the fare increase in the 1940s, however she Subway Sun ads were also eventually used to advertise technological improvements on the subway ("100 Years of Transit Progress"), as well as to encourage citizens to utilize the subway's services ("New York is Greatest - Go Subway").

Perhaps most famously in her Subway Sun ads, Oppy called out some of the more crass behaviors some NYC subway riders were becoming more infamous for in a funny-but-too-true style. In our set particularly, there is a poster with an illustration of a man falling down the stairs to the subway interest with the caption "You can get down quicker!" while a concerned woman descending the stairs in a less deranged manner looks on. To prevent confusion, warnings to "watch your step" and "take your time" decorate the poster's top corners. Oppy also illustrated ads addressing other undesirable subway behavior, such as riders putting their feet on seats, littering, and smoking.

The Monopoly-esque characters in the ads are largely recognizable as Oppy's work, and some have speculated that the women in the ads are often modeled after the artist herself. Many of the original Subway Sun ads are on display in the New York Transit Museum, but our small inventory is available for collectors or just lovers of vintage signage. Each individual poster is signed "Oppy" and marked for the New York Transit Authority.