A Very Rare Box 

By Carlton Hendricks

ntiques collectors typically like to examine and research obscure aspects of what they collect. This box would be a considered a very rare aspect of football antiques that no one ever thought about...that just sort of showed up out of no where. It would be considered almost beyond obscure. In nearly a quarter century collecting football antiques I never once thought about the wooden shipping crate footballs came in. Its from the production side as opposed to the athletic endeavor side of football antiques. Very few artifacts related to the production side surface beyond perhaps an occasional receipt or some sort of stationary. Little to nothing has been written on the early production of American footballs. Other than a c1930's group photo of production workers of Spalding tennis racquets I happen to have, I don't recall ever seeing a photo of the inside of a Spalding sporting goods production facility. I have vague knowledge the very earliest football's used in American universities were imported from the Lilly White concern in England and believe A.G. Spalding Bros. was the middleman. 

Former A.G. Spalding Brothers Building  N.W. corner Pacific and 6th Ave. Brooklyn N.Y.,  Photographed 1999 - demolished 2012 Courtesy Kevin Walsh, forgotten-ny.com

The worst time to find something great on eBay is right before it ends or right after it's listed....If you find it right before it ends you may not have time to research and get a handle on it....If you find it right after it's listed you agonize over it all week.....Take this Spalding "Foot Ball" box...what a week that was...intense right up to the last seconds...I watched it like a hawk the whole week and watched it close on my phone early on a Sunday morning as I was walking around an antiques fair...Here's the whole story....

The Saga

I came across this incredible box as I was power scrolling eBay around 9:00 A.M. on Sunday, January 6th 2013. As I recall it appeared to have just been listed...I think I was searching with the two key words "football" and "antique" and it came up. It was the kind of piece that ends the search session...Essentially I could search for a year and not see anything as good so there was no point searching further that morning. I needed to examine the listing carefully to decide how to proceed. That is, determine if it was real...how rare it was...how much to bid etc...Based on the style of the lettering I was certain the box was from the late 19th century. I couldn't recall seeing that style lettering before and thought it could even be one the earliest football shipping boxes. It was so archaic it seemed almost from the “Cowboy and Indian” era...I was riveted, the more I thought it thru the more impressed I became. 

The photos in the eBay listing were shot kind of weird, plus I couldn't enlarge them to examine it close up...However they were just good enough. Sometimes it's better not to ask for better photos since a seller is liable to post them for everyone to see, and stir more interest from competing bidders...So I downloaded them and opened with my own photo viewer and enlarged it best I could...

LEGIT - IT PASSES

Everything looked fine...It didn't look a bit fake like something made up. I'd never seen any floating around eBay and it looked too good to be a repro. If it were a repro it would have been an awfully good one; and I felt confident it was genuine. That decided, it was then a matter or how much to bid...I had the whole week to think it thru but right off the bat I thought I'd go at least $500.00.

Initially, other than the exciting product title "SPALDING'S OFFICIAL FOOT BALL", it looks like your standard antiquated wooden shipping crate. However, there's a little more intrigue....The left side of the box says "SAMPLE ONLY"....." and the right side says "...."NOT FOR  USE"...Sample only, not for use...A little bit of an anomaly if you think about it. The box measures 15 inches wide, by 12 inches deep, by 11 inches tall....Footballs were bigger and fatter in the late 19th century....Today collectors refer to then as melon balls. 

So the size of the box would have only be enough room for one melon football, and the Spalding Company in New York City shipped it somewhere....And they were very specific it was only a sample and not to be played with....And so the question would be why?....footballs are meant to be played with...what would make the ball shipped in this box special?...The only two places I can think that Spalding would have shipped balls to would have been a school or a retailer....Had it been sent to a school Spalding would have wanted it to be played with. There could only one answer...It was sent to a retailer to be a store display. No doubt they were very specific the ball not to be played with so it would remain presentable as a point of purchase display. Perhaps a display stand of some kind may have been packed in with the ball. Spalding probably sent many of these crated sample balls to retailers all around the country.  It would likely have been shipped by train to a regional hub, then transported by horse drawn wagon to the destination retailer.

EXAMPLE OF 19TH CENTURY MELON STYLE AMERICAN FOOTBALL WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN SHIPPED IN SPALDING'S FOOT BALL CRATE
top	side 1	side 2	back side

In 25 plus years of planes trains and automobiles looking for this stuff....attending innumerable antiques shows of every kind...crack of dawn flea markets...about ten National Sports Collectors Conventions...searching shows and antique stores on foot in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlantic City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, I have never seen a football shipping crate like this....And for it to be a Spalding...not a Wright and Ditson, not a Draper Maynard etc. but a Spalding...the king of sporting goods and most desired by collectors....the planets aligned!...After putting it all together I was sold. 

There was something different about the box than the usual things I buy that I couldn't quite put my finger on at the time. I think I've figured it out now though...It's the shock of it's common roughhewn nature combined with seeing the Spalding name on it...That is, I see these kind of wooden crates at flea markets pretty regularly that you couldn't give me for free....So I went from considering them junk to bidding hundreds of dollars! 

THE LISTING

Overall the seller did a pretty good job of listing it. The listing started at $19.00 with no reserve. The categories he put it under weren't bad. He had it under:

The title of the listing was  "Antique wooden dovetail Spalding's Football crate box, early 1900's, New York". The seller had used three key words in that title that were good for him but bad for me: "antique", "football", and "Spalding".  The word "antique" particularly, combined with either the other two, gave the listing higher exposure. I on the other hand took a run at my own tactical advantage but lost out. I hit him up for a BIN...a "buy it now"...but he declined. Below our exchange of emails.

$777.77

And so...with all my wonderful, meticulous, over the top research, contemplation, tactical maneuvering and planning I made my decision and loaded a $777.77 snipe bid. That figure was not based on what I thought it was worth but what I could afford. Had it been last summer when business was good I'd have put more. In my minds eye I saw it marching up into the $1,200.00 range...but I just didn't have it. Had times been better I'd have put around $2,500.00-$2,700.00 as my maximum and hoped like heck it didn't go that high.

WATCHING IT CLOSE

As mentioned I found the box right after it was listed and I watched it like a hawk for 7 days, ending on Jan. 13th at 8:53AM. I was walking around the once a month Sacramento Antiques Fair and watched it on my phone as it closed...People milling about me as I was fixated. I think it was around $353.00 right up to the last few seconds...20 seconds....15 seconds...10 seconds...still around $353.00...8 seconds...5 seconds...and boom...

NOSE DIVE

For a fraction of a second it went to $513.74 and in that split second I thought I'd gotten it...and a split second later boom...my $777.77 got tire tracks on it. I saw the bad news of the $787.77...I was stunned...reeling...people milled past me at the show but I wasn't there...It was over....I lost it....gone....done...history...I was out...All I could do was stare down an isle in an aimless stupor and try to comprehend what just happened...People casually strolling around me had no idea what just went down. I continued around the show looking at things but really didn't see anything...I was in a daze. Finally I left the show and just sat in my car shell shocked for a while before I left. I was in kind of a daze the rest of the day and even following day.

About ten minutes after it closed I texted a friend of mine John Gennantonio to see if he got it. Later that week I learned he saw it but dismissed it as fake...He reasoned the box should have said "A.G. Spalding" not just "Spalding's". I called another friend in Los Angeles Ryan Sims to see if maybe he'd gotten it...No but it was sweet, he said...I'm trying to figure who may have gotten it I said....Oh ****** ****** got it for sure he said....you think? I said. No question it was ****** ******...he's "Mr. Spalding", Ryan said...Then a light clicked on....I had completely forgot about ****** ******. I'd heard about him for years that he buys up everything Spalding...Yup....likely it was him. I've met him briefly at a National or two and had his card....but was reluctant to call him since I hardly knew him. I talked to John Gennantonio to see if he knew him well enough to call and see if he got it...John's always super busy and it took about a week but finally John talked to him and yes...he confirmed he was the buyer.....It was kind of a relief to at least know where it went....John related that ******* ******* told him he'd bought a similiar Spalding box for baseballs out of a Hunt auction years ago and paid in the $9,000.00-$10,000.00 range so he was very happy to get the football one for $787.00....My reaction to that?....I KNEW IT DARN IT!!!...I knew it was a force....

These kinds of "outbid" situations always remind me of a joke I once heard....A young collector was talking to an old man who was a sage veteran collector....The young man says to him....You've been at this a long time....tell me....what's the secret to forming a great collection..."Have lots of money" the old man said!

Finally I emailed ******** ******* to get his take on it...He sent the following thoughts he has on the box...with the disclaimer it's unproven conjecture.

c1890's SPALDING FOOTBALL GOODS SIGN 23 1/2" wide by 18 1/2" tall - Carlton Hendricks Collection Spalding's Foot Ball box would have made a nice companion piece

Epilogue

The box was kind of an extension of what is probably my favorite piece in my collection...my c1890's Spalding Foot Ball Goods Sign...I kind of saw them going perfect together. Winding this up, I would have to say...before I started collecting....had someone told me I would someday write a story about a wooden shipping crate, I'm not sure I would have believed them.  To be honest, the winning bidder did me two things....saved me a lot of money and a lot of space! The box would have taken up a chunk of real estate. Anytime you have a box to display it can take a fair amount of room in your collection. Cigar boxes are a good example. I did take the space issue into consideration in the heat of it all...and I'd have hated to lose that much room...but....I would have...It was that great!

END