Consign Your Best Items with Lelands. We Also Pay Cash on the Spot! Learn More Here.
1917-25 Negro National League Financial Ledger from the Rube Foster Family (1917-25) - The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Negro Leagues
The Holy Grail of Negro League Baseball, this important tome documents the birth of organized Negro League Baseball in America and the world. With incredible provenance, this came directly from the family of Andrew "Rube" Foster, the Frederick Douglass of African-American baseball. Foster was a figurative Moses opening the way for a tsunami of talent in the national game. Everyone from Josh Gibson to Jackie Robinson, to Willie Mays owes a debt of gratitude to the mighty Andrew Foster. These ancient pages dipped in stunning calligraphic black ink were obtained directly from the Foster family along with other Foster artifacts we have sold over the last few years. The quality of the handwriting is magnificent and obviously done by a highly educated person who may have been a secretary of the League or accountant. All written in the same charmed hand, this same person was obviously with him from 1917-25. Handwriting samples and further research may spell out in who's valued hand this was written. This piece de resistance was saved by his beloved sister who kept the legend, fame and flame alive through the years, up until her passing. Supreme quality 773-page financial ledger was produced by Hoffman Flat Opening Blank Books of Chicago and just more than 20% of the pages are filled. Begun in 1917 when as the owner of the Chicago Leland Giants, it spells out the beginnings of the ultimate "negro" baseball team through the years with players such as Oscar Charleston, Cristobal Torriente, Bingo DeMoss, Jim Brown, John Beckwith and Dave Brown. By far the mightiest team of the time, they were as good, perhaps even better than any white team, from Joe Jackson's Chicago White cum Black Sox to John McGraw's New York Giants. Through the years they boasted such "giants" as the Kansas City Monarchs (L.J. Wilkinson), Tate Stars & Detroit Stars (George Tate), Indianapolis ABC’s (Mrs. C. Taylor), Bacharach Giants (James W. Connors), Pittsburgh Keystones (A.M. Williams), Cleveland Browns (L.L. Yancey), Columbus Buckeyes (James M. Lloyd), Chicago Giants (Joe Green), Cuban Stars (Augustine Molina), St. Louis Stars (Sam Shepard), St. Louis Giants (Charles A. Mills) and Birmingham Black Barons (Joe Rush). Plus, Toledo Tigers, Cream City Giants, Hilldale Giants, Pittsburgh Giants, Milwaukee Bears, Memphis Red Sox, Dayton Marcos and Bacharach Giants. But with the dawn of the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age, this book become so much more: The Bible of Black Baseball. On February 13, 1920, at a Chicago YMCA, Rube Foster and his fellow team owners created the Negro National League and the NEGRO LEAGUES WERE OFFICIALLY BORN. The teams listed are a Who's Who of the period with their legendary owners as well: Joe Green, Candy Jim Taylor, Pete Hill, C.I Taylor, Jose Mendez and Tinti Molina. Listing nearly every game, their receipts in sumptuous detail, this is an intimate this camera obscura from a time gone by. Furthermore, records of the Negro Leagues are as scarce as social justice of the time. The potential value research here is infinitesimal. The records here are the key to unlocking the past. But the ledger parallels the sad reality of Rube Foster, the man. Around 1925, details begin to fade. From 1917-25 lists, Foster started to fade out around the mid-1920s when his health started to decline. By 1923-25 he was not putting the same detail into the ledger when his problems in life overtook him. Spectacular calligraphic handwriting must have been done by the accountant or secretary of the team, therefore the scripter may be researchable. Re-bound in leather with some original fittings preserved and worked into the new covers, which look pretty much the same as the original covers which had deteriorated. Book made and Labeled, “Burr Vack Company” & “Hoffman Flat Opening Blank Books." 773 total pages and about 170 are written on, with some tears and fragile but really nice and solid overall as the ink is NM and unblemished. Tragically, Rube Foster, like Josh Gibson after him, passed away in 1930 from a heart attack after battling mental illness.
Past Sports Card, Memorabilia, Non-Sports Card and Collecitble Auction Items
Other past auction items that may be of interest to you.
Extremely Rare Willard Brown Vintage Single Signed Baseball
Roberto Clemente Rare 16mm Film from 1972 Gatorade Commercial Orig Box
1890s Darktown Brotherhood Baseball Minstrels Poster
1942 Ethiopian Clowns World Colored Champion Negro League Broadside
Circa 1934 Baseball Sake Pitchers
“Josh Gibson Died in 1947” Signed 3x5 Card
1956 Brooklyn Dodgers Tour of Japan Team Signed Baseball
