bb magazine
Alan,
The auction you are speaking of took place in New York City over two days in September of 1996. Christie's East (I don't believe there has been an "East" for some time), handled the auction. Once in a while, a catalog will turn up on eBay. They are a trip.
The auction was a big deal; the New York Times did a article a week before the sale. This was good publicity for the auction house, but I don't believe they considered this stuff to be classy material. There were about 17 thousand photos in the auction.
Bill Mastro was the big spender on the first day, buying Conlon lots and lots packed with HOFers. He may have spent in the vicinity of 40 thousand dollars. Mr. Mastro was a smart guy and may have had buyers for this stuff when he walked on to the auction floor. There were, maybe, two other big dealers who picked up a disproportionate number of lots. I can think of only one or two private collectors who may have made an imprint.
There had been the Culver sale of Bain photo about 4 years prior to this auction. Sotheby's handled that auction. That was the first time photographs went for big money. That was just a weird auction....
There were no M113 or M114 premiums, but there were about 20 lots of what the auction house called "cover" photos. I have at least one that wasn't mounted, but most were Conlon shots affexed to heavy board.
BB Magazine was around from 1908 into 1955. Between '55 and '65 it was sort of hit and miss.
The last publisher was Earl Noyes of Washington. D.C. His widow was in possession of the photo library until the Christie's sale. She had made attempts to sell the photos, but, until the Christie's auction, had no luck. You have to remember, photographs were of absolutely no value, if you were going to collect baseball memorabilia in those days, it would have been cards or autographs or programs. I have been told there was an asking price of $100,000, which would have constituted a real gamble. Who knows?
Here's the punch line: about three weeks after Christie's hauled out the 17 thousand photos, a pipe flooded the apartment where the pictures had been stored.
lumberjack
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