Historical Hockey Memorabilia Auction Winter 2019
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/26/2019
A member of three national championship teams during his tenure at Princeton, Hobey Baker and the Tigers football squad would celebrate a national title in 1911 – their first since 1906 – with the hockey team crowned as collegiate champions in both 1912 and 1914. We have four items featuring the legendary rover’s time in the Ivy League. Included, we have a luncheon menu for the Princeton/Yale football clash that took place on Nov 15th 1913, with Baker pictured in the Tigers’ team photo. This is followed by a pair Princeton Pictorial Reviews from 1914, with one picturing Baker in an individual photo along with one featuring football game-action, with the second Review having another individual photo of Baker in his football gear. The final item was taken from a program, with the single page showcasing captain’s of collegiate football teams, including Baker.
The luncheon menu is a simple fold-over affair, approx 3 ½” x 11” (unfolded), with team photos for both Princeton and Yale, with a bit of toning and spotting, as well as wear along the spine. The Pictorial Reviews are both just under 8” x 11”, with toning to the interiors, with both having wear along the spine including small tears along the top and bottom. One also sports a vertical crease from the review having been previously folded. Lastly, the program page is 6 ½” x 9 ¼”, and it pictures cameo photos of six collegiate football captains including Baker, with toning along with a rough right edge from originally being bound in the program.
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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