You may be familiar with Cy Young through his baseball cards, but there are relatively few photographs of Young plying his craft. Our Vintage Photo of the Day is one such image. It’s believed to have never been seen in the hobby before and likely unseen since it was first used in newspaper coverage at the time of Young’s career.
The evolution of the portable camera came a little late to capture many images from his prime, which straddled the dawn of a new century.
The 3 ¼” x 4 ½” photo was taken in 1908 during his time as a member of the Boston Red Sox and used by the following year when he shifted to his home state Cleveland franchise.
RMY Auctions believes the photo may have been taken by George Grantham Bain but there is no identification on the back. The bold image has two small creases (one reinforced on the back) and some artistic tracing done by the newspaper which utilized the photo more than 100 years ago.
Bidding is now under way for more than 1,000 original images in the RMY Premier Auction, each hand-selected, graded, evaluated and detailed. Almost all are silver gelatin photos.
The auction closes June 21 at 8pm EST at RMY Auctions.com.
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