[oldjudge]

As some dedicated Old Judge collectors may remember, there are several known instances where the ball in a pose may have been moved on the negative, either to accommodate a Gypsy Queen banner or just for aesthetic reasons. I have found another case of a moving ball, but in this case resulting from multiple ball positions during the original photo session. If one refers to the Old Judge book you will see that Sleepy Townsend has two poses that are the same except one has no ball visible (461-3), and one with the ball visible at the right (461-4). Note that the position of the ball in 461-4 is even with the subject's palms. Also shown below is a Gilbert and Bacon Townsend proof. This is the same pose, but in this case the ball is even with his finger tips, higher than in 461-4. Thus, it appears that Gilbert and Bacon took multiple, very similar images for Goodwin to select from. Now that we know what we are looking for it will be interesting to see if this newly found ball positioning pose shows up on an N172.
Note: it is also possible that 461-3 is the pose shown on the proof with the ball cropped out.