The Underwood stamp on the back is known to have existed in 1918 and possibly earlier and is well known in 1919 so it is a 1915 photo with a back stamp from c. 1918. You are correct though, by the PSA standards this would not get a Type 1 designation as it is clearly off a duplicate negative. I think the biggest room for upward mobility in the photo industry is in images like this. People act like "Type 1" is synonymous with "original" and "Type 3" is similar to an autograph failing authentication, but that is just not the case. This is just as "original" as any other Ruth Red Sox image as far as the vintage goes. If E121 cards are going to go for 20k because he is pictured with the Red Sox on the card, its hard to argue this was not a good deal! I would take this over many of the other Ruth items I see selling at auction for bigger prices all day long.
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