When we unloaded the sixty seven 27" x 16" x 13" blue plastic cartons containing the entirety of the St. Petersburg Times Sports Photo Archive at the MEARS Evaluation & Research Museum we knew that a long road lay ahead in terms of counting and sorting the 125,000 plus photos contained therein. After separating the baseball and football photos we were left with this gigantic lot of 85,000 photos which run the gamut of any and everything covered by the St. Petersburg Times Sports Department during the time frame encompassed by this archive. The large majority of photos come from the mid to late 1970's into the early 1990's but given the all encompassing nature of this archive there are a considerable number of vintage images from the preceding years dating back to the early parts of the 20th Century. Due to the enormous size of this lot shipping will be substantial.
The entire sports contents, baseball, football, other sports, are being sold during this MEARS Auction Only. Meaning, every single photo has either been listed as a single lot, or packaged into one of the three dealer lot offerings. Meaning, we have not held back one single image. If you see it in this auction, you have only one chance to bid!. Once this lot is sold, MEARS has no more images from the St. Petersburg Times archive.
Any sport you can imagine and anyone of note who participated in that sport during the listed years is probably present in this collection in some form or another. Basketball, Boxing, Golf, Tennis, Olympic Sports, Bowling, Little League, Softball, Hockey, Soccer and Racing of all sorts (Car, Horse, Bike and Boat) are covered in this lot along with many other marginal sports like Jai Alai, Horse Shoes and even Lawn Darts and Croquet. Approximately 40% of the photos are laser or wire photos with the remaining 60% being Generation 1 photos. As this collection represents the bulk of the St. Petersburg Times Sports Photo Archive there are a number of photos of local athletes from the amateur levels included alongside the likes of their peers who practiced professionally.
Some of the more notable names present in this collection include Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman, Archie Moore, Jake LaMotta, Rocky Marciano, Mike Tyson, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Babe Zaharias, Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Bjorn Borg, Arthur Ashe, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Jennifer Capriati, Tracy Austin, Roger Bannister, Carl Lewis, Florence Griffith Joyner, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Edwin Moses, Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton, Mark Spitz, Greg Louganis, Bonnie Blair, Brian Boitano, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Steve Yzerman, Grant Fuhr, Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Diego Maradona, Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt, Richard Petty, Goose Tatum, Minnesota Fats, Dick Weber and James Naismith.
If you would like to view a further sample of this all encompassing lot click on any of the player links below for a selection of some of the Generation 1 photos present in this offering.
Arnold Palmer,
Cassius Clay,
Dick Weber,
Duk Koo Kim,
Fabulous Moolah,
Franz Beckenbauer,
Gabrielle Reese,
Gary Player,
George Foreman,
George Mikan,
Goose Tatum,
Hurricane Carter,
Jake LaMotta,
James Naismith,
Jersey Joe Walcott,
Joe Louis,
Minnesota Fats,
Pele,
Roger Bannister &
Sonny Liston.