Hi Steve
When this photo was uncovered, it was the only known copy. I believed it was a Conlon, and still do, based purely on circumstantial evidence. It has since been credited to Van Oeyen by PSA but I have no idea how they based that. From what I can say is this; Conlon worked primarily with the Giants (National League) his first couple of years taking pictures of ballplayers. It was not the big business it became 3-4 years later and it was actually a bit of a novelty, a side project for Conlon if you will. I bet he only took 5-10 trips to the ballpark to take baseball pictures. He was also known to be personal friends with Mathewson. Van Oeyen similarly was taking shots of almost exclusively Cleveland players (American League) until it became more financially lucrative to start branching out. It seems VERY unlikely that Van Oeyen would have been in any position to take a photograph of Mathewson since they never played the Giants. Aside from that, it has the look and feel of some of Conlon's work and the pieces (location, subject, photographer, style) all make sense for the work to be Conlon's. It is mounted and it would be interesting to see what is on the back of the photo if the mount is removed. I am not saying 100% this is a Conlon photo, but the odd's are overwhelming it is Conlon as opposed to Van Oeyen.
I have no proof for or against the Conlon/Underwood photos Paul is talking about, but I can see what he is saying in regard to the "eyes" subjects in isolation. His contact prints are superior in quality to those stamped by Underwood. However, when talking about the overall relationship between Underwood and Conlon, the large 8x10 uncropped specimens of known Conlon images bearing the Underwood stamps on the back are of exceptional quality. I believe those ones to be off Conlon negatives. We actually viewed an archive recently with a large box of Underwood paperwork from the 1920's and I was praying for some type of paperwork linking Conlon to Underwood but no luck. It is probably a mystery that will never be solved.
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