Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Has anyone ever come across a Bears team photo from the 1926-1930 period?

In 25+ years of research, I have never seen one. They don't seem to appear in any old pubications at all.

Three possibilities would seem to exist - 1) they never existed 2) they existed, but did not survive 3) they exist, but are very very scarce.

The Bears website has an archive of team photos - http://www.chicagobears.com/multimedia/ ... da7815b371

Various issues - ignore the supposed jersey numbering in the captions. The "1922" photo is actually the 1923 team and vice versa. The "1933" photo is the 1934 team on their post-season west coast tour (#29 is Jim McMillen, not Joe Kopcha).

The 1925 photo appears to have been taken some time on the east coast Barnstorming Tour - probably somewhere between St. Louis (02-Dec) & New York (13-Dec), although most likely before the Pittsburgh (10-Dec; played in snow) game when Grange was injured.

Nothing for 1926-1930 though. Game programs from this period do seem to include some contemporary photos of players, but no team photos that I know of.

Any ideas?

I looked through my files and older programs and don't see any team photos from that era - just the yearbook style individual photos in their home programs. Maybe they felt burned when they issued the team photo from 1924 with the "World's Champion" text only to see it awarded to Cleveland.

1930 was the last year that Bears home programs had multiple pages with nice photos of each individual player - then Halas went to cardboard folders and even sold space on the front page for advertising. Maybe that was the reason to return to team photos.

Here's a link to a 1925 home program http://www.hapmoran.org/Other/1925GiantsatBears.pdf

Possibly quite literally burned, when the Bears offices went up in flames in the early 1960s?

I have a number of scorched, burnt and otherwise crispy pieces that survived the fire...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4nnmlaahs77e1 ... ackers.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m3rddrcn7syd8 ... lStars.png

The fact that they took a number of individual photos at the time may suggest team photos were also possibly taken.

Bears programs in that era didn't appear to include team photos. It just seems somewhat odd that none appear elsewhere (newspapers etc) at the time, or subsequently.

I used to own this one from the 1932 playoff between the Bears and the Spartans, but sold it to buy the 1933 Championship program - the fellow who sold it to me told me it came from a fireman who worked that Bears fire - which I heard was in a storage facility. There's not much in there to tell you it's the playoff program except the League Standing box under the Portsmouth line up

Mike, nice Bears/Spartans program. I actually first heard the story of the fire on the History channel's Pawn Stars. Someone brought the program in and the Pawn shop bought it.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the post was programs as well. My experience has been its easier to find a team picture in a 20s program than individual and if the photo isn't labeled the challenge becomes trying to match the faces to the roster. I would speculate if the team photos aren't showing up, maybe they weren't taken. It seems less likely they were taken and then shoved in a drawer to later be caught in the fire. Maybe I'm wrong, but I would think in the 20s, the main use of the photos would be programs and maybe advertising ticket sales.

Browsing through the Heritage Auctions site I came across this beauty of a 1930 Bears team photo.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0m5br06lzyydfro/1930.jpg

Left to Right: Ralph Jones (Coach), Danny McMullen, Laurie Walquist, Dick Nesbitt, Bill Senn, Babe Frump, Red Grange, Gardie Grange, Larry Steinbach, Bert Pearson, Link Lyman, Lyle Drury, Don Murry, Bronko Nagurski, Walt Holmer, George Trafton, Paul Schuette, Joe Lintzenich, Carl Brumbaugh, Andy Lotshaw (Trainer) & Luke Johnsos.

The auction listing says that it was taken in front of Memorial Stadium, although it doesn't say where. The photo is credited to the Atlantic Foto Service and the poster on the wall behind Pearson & Lyman has a reference to the Chalfonte Haddon Hall which is in Atlantic City. The Bears had a road trip to the east to play the Giants, Yellow Jackets & Ironton Tanks in mid-November.

LJP wrote:Browsing through the Heritage Auctions site I came across this beauty of a 1930 Bears team photo.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0m5br06lzyydfro/1930.jpg

Left to Right: Ralph Jones (Coach), Danny McMullen, Laurie Walquist, Dick Nesbitt, Bill Senn, Babe Frump, Red Grange, Gardie Grange, Larry Steinbach, Bert Pearson, Link Lyman, Lyle Drury, Don Murry, Bronko Nagurski, Walt Holmer, George Trafton, Paul Schuette, Joe Lintzenich, Carl Brumbaugh, Andy Lotshaw (Trainer) & Luke Johnsos.

The auction listing says that it was taken in front of Memorial Stadium, although it doesn't say where. The photo is credited to the Atlantic Foto Service and the poster on the wall behind Pearson & Lyman has a reference to the Chalfonte Haddon Hall which is in Atlantic City. The Bears had a road trip to the east to play the Giants, Yellow Jackets & Ironton Tanks in mid-November.

That is an incredible photo, especially to have it signed by Grange and Nagurski ....

JeffreyMiller wrote:That is an incredible photo, especially to have it signed by Grange and Nagurski ....

The photo sold last November for over $3,300!!

Found a few other interesting ones too, including an early 1933 Bears team photo - https://www.dropbox.com/s/v30zu9f9j11ikez/1933.png

After many edits, think I may have finally managed to eventually identify (subject to any additional information) all of them:-

Back: Bill Miller, Kopcha (29), Ronzani (17), Nagurski (5), Gonya (6), Karr, Hansen, Manders (8), Kawal (21), Doehring (27) & Walquist
Middle: Engebretsen (21), Lyman (13), Musso (14), Auer (24), Hewitt (56), Tackwell (19), Malone (2), Smith, Sisk (7) & Nesbitt (2)
Bottom: Buckler (15), Bergerson (9), Miller (76), Brumbaugh (8), Pearson (26), Zeller (15), Carlson (20), Richards (14) & Corbett (5)

A lot of the jersey numbers are out from the norm.

Absent - Red Grange, Luke Johnsos, Keith Molesworth & George Trafton (DNP). Paul Franklin & Dick Stahlman all joined the team later in the season.

I have this one scanned, not sure of my source

The original version of that photo was from a program on the Bears 1933/34 post-season tour, although this one has been butchered somewhat, with Joe Kopcha's head added on to Cliff Battles (#29) body and likewise, Bill Buckler's head on Eddie Kawal's (#19) body. Keith Molesworth (#4) has also materialized from thin air too

Here is the original version - https://www.dropbox.com/s/c9a71n0vqe7c4sm/1933_2.jpg