Harry "Doc" Sage, Catcher, Toledo, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

This small card featuring Harry "Doc" Sage, a catcher for Toledo, was made by Goodwin & Company as part of the Old Judge Cigarettes series. These cards were not conceived as high art, but rather as promotional ephemera: cheap collectibles included in packs of cigarettes. The photographic printing process used here was albumen silver. This involved coating paper with egg white and then silver nitrate, making it light-sensitive. It was then placed in contact with a negative and exposed to sunlight. The resulting image, a warm sepia tone, has a distinctive texture, capturing Sage's likeness, his uniform, and the baseball bat slung casually over his shoulder. By including these cards with their products, tobacco companies like Old Judge Cigarettes were able to tap into the burgeoning popularity of baseball. The images of these athletic figures, mass-produced and distributed, fueled the consumerism of the time. This once-humble piece of paper demonstrates how deeply art and commerce are intertwined, even at the most apparently mundane levels of material culture.