I may have mentioned one, two or ten times that I love wire photos. Well, here may be my 11th display of admiration for these sports treasures in today’s blog.

On Friday, I was lucky enough to visit hobby pioneer Bob Lemke, who happens to still live in Iola, Wis., right down the road from the Krause offices. Bob let me borrow an absolutely huge collection of photos that spanned from the early 1900s, through the 80s.

The reason I wanted to take a look at his photos was for an article I have been preparing about wire photos, but as a little teaser I figured I’d put some in today’s blog to let Gavel Chat readers get a little sampling of these unique masterpieces.

Check out the photo of Casey Stengel! Who said there was no HGH use in the 1960s? Classic.

By the way, do you think that there’s any possibility that the Mays photo is Willie showing godson Barry Bonds how to bat at a very early age? I am thinking no, but wouldn’t that be a cool one?

Enjoy. I know I did. More to come as well.