Chronology:US Wicket? UK cricket? Other?

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1830c.35 Pretty Darn Early Ballplaying Card

Tags:

Drawing

Age of Players:

Youth

"Here is the earliest known card of a bat and ball game, and the only example known. Included within a set of children’s educational game cards typical of those popular in the early part of the nineteenth century, . . ." 

Comment:

From the Sotheby site:

 

 [H]ere is the earliest known card of a bat and ball game, and the only example known. Included within a set of children’s educational game cards typical of those popular in the early part of the nineteenth century, it pictures three boys engaged in a game that is clearly an antecedent and close cousin to the sport that has evolved into baseball. The cards in the series measure 2 1/8" by 2 5/8" and each of the group of seventeen offered here features a different rhyming riddle. The bat and ball game shown here is akin to other known woodcut images depicting primitive baseball-like scenes dating from the period 1815-1830, most of them also showing an oddly-shaped end to the bat typical of the time before there was such a thing as a commercially manufactured bat. Significantly, the few other such known images all originated in books or pamphlets. The image presented here is the only example known to exist on a card.

The curved bat is suggestive of the bat used for the game of wicket in the US.

 

John Thorn indicates that this card was owned by our late SABR friend Frank Ceresi.  Frank is not unlikely the source of the estimate of "around 1830" as when the card appeared.  

 

Query:

Can we obtain a more precise estimate of when this card was made?

Can we determine whether the card was distributed in America or in England? 

Circa
1830
Item
1830c.35
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