eBay Eyes: Vintage Baseball Goodies From Japan

Baseball season is well underway and April is National Kite Month! I came across these vintage baseball-player kites on eBay a while back along with some mid-century "baseball menko" cards.

eBay Eyes is an occasional presentation of found visual treats from that ever expanding , electronic mega-marketplate. 

I was amazed to see pictorial elements of traditional Japanese prints in the three "bookmark" cards above. 

European artists were smitten with the "new" aesthetic they encountered when Japanese prints found their way to the continent in the later part of the 19th Century. The influence of ukiyo-e on the Impressionists, and everything from fashion to décor was profound.

These baseball cards confirm how culturally determined our sense of design really is. What struck the eyes of Western artists as “fresh” in Japanese prints—asymmetrical compositions, adventurous cropping, the flat indication of space—were elements of design native to the Japanese sensibility. So much so, as to show up in in their baseball cards!

The portrait cards, below, are formatted with traditional Western composition.

Have a Ball This Christmas (or next, it's pretty late)

SPOT THE DOG and SILVERFACE THE CAT
“English Bone China with a Japanese twist,” is how these baubles by Reiko Kaneko are described by UK online retailer Rockett St. George.




PLAY MORE
Note pads by Amsterdam-based Trapped in Suburbia.




ORBS
You’ll find both 'functional' and 'decorative' items for sale at the Paul and Kate Studio on Etsy. These orbs are from the 'decorative' (completely useless) category. But who cares--they are so textural and mysterious, and absolutely perfect for someone who really doesn’t “need” anything. You might want to combine the Prehistoric Planet (top) with a copy of "The Little Prince." And you can safely assume that the recipient of the Caramel Barnacle (not really an orb, its flat bottom makes it more like a scone), doesn’t already have one.



FILAGREE BALL
This vintage pendant, from TopsyDesign on Etsy, is so Rosemary's Baby. If you're giving this to a pregnant woman, don’t forget to fill with tannis root!

Opening Day, Red Sox vs. Yankees at Fenway Park

These first two are the coolest of each team’s programs that I’ve been able to dig up. This 1948 Red Sox program is so Bauhaus, and the Yankee program from 1967 has got a real Warhol/Xerox/Barbara Kruger quality about it—don’t you think?





I can’t say that I quite know the difference between programs, scorecards and scorebooks, but here is a sampling over the years from both teams.











Boston Red Sox material via murphman61
New York Yankee material via Hollywood Collectibles, Bob's Baseball Museum, eBay.

Be sure to check out 20 Great Baseball Covers for Opening Day at Robert Newman Design.

Okay. Now, PLAY BALL!