1891 Tiffany Silver Yale Match Safe

It was a hot and very humid day at Brimfield today (Sept 4), but it was worth the hours spent and the miles walked in the heat to come away with the match safe pictured above.

This is a Tiffany silver match safe commemorating the year’s record for the 1891 Yale football team (Yale 492, Opponents 0), and the games and scores against Harvard (Yale 10, Harvard 0) and Princeton (Yale 19, Princeton 0).  We knew of two examples of this marvelous match safe previously, one coming out of Leland’s in 2002 (having belonged to Frederick William Wallace) and the other snuck through virtually unnoticed at Julia’s in 2014 (having belonged to William Herbert Corbin and now in the possession of Tiffany's private collection).

All three of the match safes being handmade show artist variations in the work, and of course differ in their monograms.

This particular match safe belonged to William Burnet Wright, Jr., class of ’92. Wright earned his football letter and was the president of the Yale Football Association in 1891. He was also the Captain of the Yale Athletic Association team 1890 - 1891, the half-mile run being his specialty. 

These match safes were presented to team members and coaches on February 26, 1892 at a dinner at Madison Square Garden, attended by 400 individuals,  held to honor Walter Camp for his service to Yale's football team and to the University. It was at this banquet that Camp was also presented with the famous Tiffany silver loving cup with three players supporting a football on their backs (McClung, Hefflefinger and Bayne posed for artists at Tiffany, and their likenesses are represented on the cup).

Note (added May 01, 2022): In December of 1890, an exhibition game was played between the Yale ’91 and Alonzo Stagg’s Springfield Christian Workers as part of a larger organized sporting event. This took place indoors at Madison Square Garden and was considered to be the first indoor football game. William Wright played RE in this historic match. The Yale roster for the game was Hartwell, Funk, Hefflefinger, Lewis, Adams, Ely, Wright, Twombly, Williams, McClintock and B. Morison. Springfield’s roster included James Naismith (inventor of basketball) playing center and Stagg playing FB as well as coaching. Referee for the game was Alexander Moffat (Princeton). Yale won over Springfield 16 to 10.