Mega business as it is today, the National Football League was a fledgling operation in the Roaring ‘20s. Born in the Midwest, the league six years earlier, the league hatched a team in New York by 1925 and landed a mega star.
The RMY Auctions Photo of the Day is a classic shot from the dawn of one of pro football’s great franchises.
Jim Thorpe had been an Olympic sensation, then tried his hand at baseball. He later became president of the American Professional Football Association, which would later become the NFL.
Thorpe had been a member of the Canton Bulldogs but hadn’t played joined the Giants for a one-year stint in 1925. The first year franchise played its games at the Polo Grounds, with its first game taking place in early October.
The original news photo shows four of the stars who played in the leather helmet era: Thorpe, Dutch Hendrian, Babe Parnell, and Paul Jappe. Issued by NEA, the photo is an original 1925 image which was filed at a later date by NEA and dated after the 1928 season when Thorpe was finally wrapping up his career with the Chicago Cardinals.
The 6 ½” x 8 ½” photo is one of 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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