Early baseball card tobacco label featuring Doctor Merle T. Adkins.
This public domain playing card comes from the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress. The image shows Doctor Merle T. Adkins after throwing a baseball. He appears to be clothed in a heavy wool jersey and a old fashioned baseball cap. There are quite literally thousands of these baseball cards scanned in the collection at the Library of Congress. We are going to pick out a few of the best to display on Ars Publik.
This image was published in 1911 by the American Tobacco Company as a tobacco label. Due to the pre-1923 publication date, this image is in the public domain.
14.8 megabyte TIFF, hosted by the Library of Congress.
User Descriptions
03.21.10
This is the image of ADKINS BALTIMORE.This picture is made by a very talented painter because face,body and whole picture is looking very natural.He seems to be a player because ha is wearing Gloves in his left hand.This picture looks very old because the cap is old fashioned.But, I must say this person was very stylish his posture is not so common.It seems this picture was made in winter season because he is wearing jersey.Well,the color of jersey is also very dull and out dated.Its design is also old.The background of the picture is yellow and it has some red patches also.He is wearing white shirt and white paint. The framing of the picture is brown and design is old.It is not used now.It seems this picture is old but the person belongs to a high class.In the framing we can see two “B” on both sides of the frame.It may be the first letter of his surname BALTIMORE.We can see some green color also in the background.One green flag is also visible at the background may be the painter wants to give it natural look.