Incredibly rare studio cabinet photo originating from the studio of Joseph Wood, one of New York's premier studio photographers, well-known for both his baseball photography and his connection to various 19th Century baseball card issues. Each of the photos originating from this series picture a vignette portrait of a member of the New York Metropolitans of the American Association. Each player is handsomely dressed, wearing a polka-dot necktie. These images (without vignettes) would be used on N172 Old Judge portrait cards; these "Spotted Tie" portraits are among the most desirable of all the subsets in the series. The Old Judge "Spotted Tie" subset is extremely difficult to complete; these Jos. Wood cabinets are more rare by orders of magnitude. In fact, of the five examples featured in this auction, only one appears in the most recent (2017) edition of the Standard Catalog, with just three appearing in the online checklist at TCDB.com. 

Each of the cards in the grouping we are offering shares a common characteristic: the subject's name has been written in the bottom border, in pencil. Though no advanced collector of this type of material would presume this writing to be an autograph, the writing gave both grading companies pause. Neither SGC nor PSA would holder the cards for fear that the writing would somehow be mistaken for an Al Mays autograph, so each company (including SGC, which doesn't even authenticate autographs, and who have authenticated cabinets with similar writing in the past) returned the cards to us without authenticating. We assure you, this cabinet is genuine!

This example boasts an outstanding image of Mays, the same image found on his Baseball Reference page. Mays pitched six seasons in the American Association with four different teams, losing a league-leading 34 games with the 1887 Mets. The cabinet, which corresponds with card #299-1 in the N172 Old Judge issue, exhibits soiling and wear consistent with its age, some edge and corner chipping, heaviest at the top left, and additional ink and pencil notations (no autographs, sadly) on the reverse.  An incredibly rare piece, rare enough that even the most advanced collectors may not encounter one.