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 Jim Donohue 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!

Utilityman Jim Donahue played nine professional seasons, including five in the majors. His finest season was with the 1887 Metropolitans, where he batted .282 in 220 at bats. This card corresponds with his Old Judge card #128-1. This example, as with the others in the group being offered here, boasts a sharp image of the subject, despite visible wear at the edges and some light surface wrinkling along the bottom edge of the photo. In addition to the non-autograph on the bottom border, additional non-autographed editorial markings can be observed on the reverse, which is heavily soiled. An incredibly rare piece, this cabinet of Donohue was not catalogued in either the 2017 Standard Catalog or the TCDB database for the set, indicating it is entirely possible that this is the sole known example.