Original Copy of the October 26, 1922 Contract for the services of future Hall of Fame player, "Bullet Joe" Harold Simpson - WCHL Edmonton Eskimos 1922-23 season.
This remarkable original document is from the Ken MacKenzie collection. Several "Copies" of the original contracts were discovered in the collection. When I say "Copy", I am referring to the fact that an administrator with the League or Team, made an additional copy of the original contract. This copy contained all the information from the originally signed document by the player, however for the "copy" the administrator also signed the player's name in the space allocated for the player's signature. Upon close examination of the contracts i was able to ascertain most all of the contracts labelled "Copies" were in fact filled in by one administrator given that the handwriting for everything, including the signatures is in the same hand.
In fact, in this collection were four copies of contracts from the 1924-25 season that had the exact same handwriting on each copy. However there was also a letter included in the collection from WCHL President E.L. Richardson to Ken MacKenzie stating that he was enclosing "Copies" of the contracts of these four players. So this confirms that for the purposes of administration, copies of all the WCHL contracts were likely made at the office of President E.L. Richardson and the originals kept with the office and the copies sent to the team.
Bullet Joe Simpson was a star with the Edmonton Eskimos which was reflected in his salary of $3000 per season. This was likely one of the largest contracts in professional hockey at the time. Simpson would play with the Eskimos through the 1924-25 season before being sold to the NHL New York Americans where he finished his pro career in 1930-31. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player in 1963.
This contract copy is definitely original to the date. I can attest to it's orginality as I am also been in possession of contracts from the WCHL Calgary Tigers from this period and the paper stock, letterhead and style is the same.