Historical Hockey Memorabilia Auction Winter 2019
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/26/2019
Featuring his time at Princeton just prior to the First World War, Hobey Baker excelled at sport while a member of the Ivy League, also joining a number of the campus organizations including the Ivy Club, the oldest and most prestigious of the Princeton eating clubs. We have a pair of Princeton Bric-A-Brac volumes, one from 1914, the other, 1915, with these serving as the college’s yearbooks. Baker is featured prominently in both volumes, with both team and individual hockey and football photos, along with his mention as belonging to certain campus clubs.
The 1914 volume feature’s Baker pictured with the 1911 and 1912 football teams along with the 1911-12 hockey team, he’s also pictured as a Junior Promenade Committee member and listed as a member of the Ivy Club. The 1915 volume feature’s Baker pictured with the 1913 football team, with an individual photo of the legend in his football uniform, with him this time pictured as a member of the Senior Promenade Committee, and again listed as a member of the Ivy Club. Both volumes are approx 7 ½” x 9 ¾” and thick, with over 400 pages. Both also show heavy wear, with the 1914 volume having spine damage with a small separation, with heavy rubbing to the boards, with the interior pages in very good condition, remaining firmly attached. The 1915 volume also exhibits heavy wear to the boards with the edges worn away, with tape added to the both the spine and interior, with some foxing to the interior pages as well as a separation along the inside of the cover.
Earning almost mythical status and heavily collected despite the intervening century since his passing, Hobart Amory Hare Baker was born in Pennsylvania just before the close of the Victorian era, in 1892. Hailing from a prominent Philadelphia family and the epitome of an attractive blond-haired All-American, Hobey excelled at sport while attending St. Paul's School in Concord, later starring on both the ice rink and gridiron for Princeton. Three successful years would be spent in the Ivy League, with his most notable accomplishments never fumbling a punt for the Tigers, and never losing to Yale. Baker would then add heroics to his growing legend, receiving the Croix de Guerre from the French government for his service as a fighter pilot during the Great War, later losing his life in December of 1918 during a test flight. Widely recognized by contemporaries as one of the greatest natural athletes, Baker would be one of the first nine players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame upon its founding in 1945, and the only American.
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