The Bachelor Baseball Club

Baseball clubs formed around a myriad social, political and economic groupings, organizations and societies. This unusual, possibly unique graphic artifact portrays the "Bachelor Baseball Club" from 1867.

Presumably, only unmarried ballplayers came to bat for this picked nine. Portrait photographs during the Civil War era often took the form of cartes-de-visite, or calling-card-size photographs mounted on cardboard stock for durability.

The individual portraits could be exchanged with friends, family and loved ones, or incorporated into albums or elaborate large-format displays like this one.

These cartes-de-visite, or their larger cabinet-style cousins often bear photographer's imprints or inscriptions identifying the subjects. Experts consider such cards among the earliest collectible baseball cards.