19th Century Team Cabinets - Your Thoughts

[Bosox Blair]

Hi Folks,

I've dipped my toes into new waters with the recent REA - bought my first 19th Century Cabinet (or 19th Century photo of any kind, except some N172s). See image below of the 1896 Orioles Cabinet I won.

Having never explored this market before, I went in a bit blind. I had my own ideas about what would make a piece special, but I had no idea what characteristics are most important to those who are true collectors of these pieces.

So I'm hoping for your feedback on my "rookie" notions, set out below.

Here are the things I felt were important in such a piece - roughly in the order of importance I put on them. Please feel free to tell me if you (or the community of collectors for these pieces) see things differently:


Subjects/Team - is this an important team or special image of a player?
Quality of image - technical quality including contrast/tone of photo
Condition of the piece - including tears/trimming/staining of the photo or mount
Rarity of the piece - how many such pieces are known to exist
Size - bigger is better in general!
Provenance - was this owned by a player, or a notable collector (Halper, etc.)
Uniforms vs. street clothes - I think uniform photos are probably more desired, and game equipment in the photo is even better


What do you experts/collectors think of this list? I'm here to learn if you are willing to teach!!!

[drcy]

Good list. I would add time period. In general baseball photos from the 1860s are rarer than from the 1890s which are rarer than from the 1940s. Anonymous baseball player photos from the 1850s-60s are valuable just because baseball photos in general are rare from that early.

Rare processes should get a premium (platinum prints, salt prints, Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, ortones, other). This is often because the processes are rarely seen, historically significant and/or especially aesthetically pleasing. 99% of baseball photos are the standard processes (albumen (1800s), gelatin silver (1900s), tintypes, c-prints (standard modern color process), so this aspect rarely comes into play.

[Bosox Blair]

Good list. I would add time period. In general baseball photos from the 1860s are rarer than from the 1890s which are rarer than from the 1940s. Anonymous baseball player photos from the 1850s-60s are valuable just because baseball photos in general are rare from that early.

Hi David,

Thanks for your post, and the very good point about time period!

Cheers,
Blair

[drcy]

For the record, I like your pickup. Famous team, larger size, different pose and player provenance.

[drcy]

The silly thing about photos and the baseball card hobby is once a photo starts resembling a baseball card, it can zoom up in price because card collectors will buy it as a baseball card.

Normally with photos, the larger the better. A 14x20" photo will be worth more than the same photo in CDV size. But baseball card collectors may value the small size better because it "more resembles a baseball card." . . . But I guess you could say the photo then starts crossing two collecting genres, so it should be expected that demand and price for those pieces should rise.

But it also says rules of normal logic are sometimes thrown own the window when baseball card collectors get involved in an area.

My last separate note is, if you have a list of say 10 qualities that define the best photo, rarely will you find a photo with all 10 of those qualities. You may find a photo that has all of the qualities but the image isn't clear, or all of the qualities but it's small, or all of the qualities but the player shown is a Giants common player and not Christy Mathewson. In photos, as in life, perfection is rarely found, and valuation is a complex equation involving many moving parts (I think I may have just mixed my metaphors).

Most will say the one constantly required quality is the quality of the image-- the pose, clarity, focus, artistry, etc. A photo may be rare, huge and have an ornate mount, but if the image is out of focus and underdeveloped, it may not be worth buying. Many other deficiencies in a photo (including condition) can be forgiven if the image is crystal clear. And other wonderful qualities won't make up for an ugly image.

A friend and Net54 board member showed me a panorama he bought of an old baseball game in action. The image was so detailed and clear that I could (and did) look at the details of the players and horse drawn carriages and trees under a magnifying glass. I could have looked at that photo for hours, and returned and looked at it again and again. It was like a story book. If the image was out of focus and less detailed, I would have have looked at it once said "That's nice" and forgotten about it.

It's amazing when you get a antique baseball photo and it's so clear you can see the stitching on the socks. I looked at an 1860s General Custer photo and you could clearly see every button on his coat and the individual leaves in the grass around his feet. Those are photos you will want to revisit again and again, and you'll marvel and get something new out of it each time you look.

This also points to the problem of buying photos online. You won't know what a photographic image really looks like until you have it in hand.

[drcy]

My very last note is I think financial value is just one quality about a photograph, or anything. If I have two photos, I may know one has more financial value, while I like the other better. I may even think the cheaper one is better. Very rarely is my favorite item the most financially valuable. That Mickey Mantle cards sell for more than Willie Mays cards doesn't say Mantle was a better player (a majority would say he wasn't) or Mantle's cards are better. It just says that Mantle and Yankees players have more followers.

So the 'magical equation' has to do with pricing, not the innate qualities of photos, what one should collect or like.

My general rules are you should collect what you like, know what you are collecting and pay reasonable prices. If someone wants to collect 15 cent low grade Topps commons, that's great. It would be refreshing if more people collected 15 cent low grade Topps commons. They just shouldn't pay $25 each for them.

So the main questions about the REA acquisition are: Do you like the photo? and did you pay a fair price? If the answer is yes to both, then everything's good.

[Bosox Blair]

My very last note is I think financial value is just one quality about a photograph, or anything. If I have two photos, I may know one has more financial value, while I like the other better. I may even think the cheaper one is better. Very rarely is my favorite item the most financially valuable. That Mickey Mantle cards sell for more than Willie Mays cards doesn't say Mantle was a better player (a majority would say he wasn't) or Mantle's cards are better. It just says that Mantle and Yankees players have more followers.

So the 'magical equation' has to do with pricing, not the innate qualities of photos, what one should collect or like.

My general rules are you should collect what you like, know what you are collecting and pay reasonable prices. If someone wants to collect 15 cent low grade Topps commons, that's great. It would be refreshing if more people collected 15 cent low grade Topps commons. They just shouldn't pay $25 each for them.

So the real questions about the REA acquisition are: Do you like the photo? and did you pay a fair price? If the answer is yes to both, then everything's good.

Wow David, thanks for taking the time to provide your thoughts - I really appreciate all of them - very helpful. This is what I was hoping for when I posted!

And thanks also for the nice words about my pickup - I'm very pleased to have won it.

Cheers,
Blair