I acquired this framed display of Oklahoma A&M memorabilia a couple of summers ago. It has a poster of an OAMC football player with copyright 1911 on it. There's a poster of a girl with an OAMC flag from about the same time frame, and a ticket and program to a track meet from April 22, 1908. For reference, that's 89ers Day, but only 19 years after the land run said day commemorates, and only 5 months after Oklahoma was admitted to the Union as the 46th state.
I don't know when it was all framed up but I believe the frame is considerably younger than the contents. Until recently, I thought any value the thing might have would be in the track and field artifacts. But a guy who collects this kind of pre-WWI sports art (his name is Casey) saw these photos on my instagram account, and reached out to me about them. In the conversation, he said the player poster was printed in versions for multiple colleges with the correct colors, and most of the examples owned by or known to him have populations in the single digits. He had no idea one existed for Oklahoma A&M, and he's pretty sure that the one I have is a population of one, in the world. His collection is pretty spectacular and I have no reason to doubt him, he knows far more about this kind of art than me.
So the posters are very faded and there is other damage like creasing and small holes. The girl appears to have water damage as well. Casey said that the damage on the player poster actually wasn't that bad, relative to the small universe of these kinds of posters that still exist. I also learned from Casey that there are restoration services available that are completely acceptable in the world of antique posters, because everything they do is reversible. So in my mind, I have a thought that perhaps I should try to have this kind of work done, if for no other reason, to be able to share with other OSU fans a look at what there once was. The photos of these I've seen for other schools, that still have vibrant colors, are amazing.
That's where I'm wondering if anyone knows anyone who might be able to lend me some guidance as to who could do the work. There might be a place in Houston that could take it on, but every place else I see is in NYC or Chicago or SF, and I'm not sure about disassembling and shipping and everything that involves. Casey said maybe reaching out to a museum like the Gilcrease in Tulsa could help, I haven't tried that yet. So, if anyone has any ideas, or knows someone I should speak with, I'm all ears. Thanks for indulging me -
