[drcy]

Originally Posted by Jersey City Giants

Here is a question I have been pondering even before this photo. If something is printed later but is not dated and the era of the paper is the same how do they tell? Take this photo. it is labeled 1914 but that is incorrect as the uniform is from 1913 (the only year they used Cubs on the road when he played with them) and its the Image from his 1914 Fatima. However, how would anyone know when the print was exactly made? Was it 1914, 1915, 1920, 1930??? And if the production is in doubt (assuming paper checks out for period) how could anyone render an opinion at PSA or anywhere for that matter in terms of its Type? It could be a Type I or Type II but definitively putting one of those labels on it seems just a guess to me. Again, I am just talking about the Type designation not anything else.

That's a complicated question and you look at photo by photo and instance by instance. You can be sure a photo is period by looking at a number of qualities and things, and also the circumstances.

With news photos, they were news so, if the photo is identified as old, you can very fairly assume it was made very soon after the news event. Beyond the later re-issues (which are identified by the paper, blacklight, etc), 99+ percent of newsphotos were made within days after the image was shot, as they were meant to document the current news for the newspapers. That's the nature of news photos. Happily, news photos often have date stamps, tags and captions that also help date the photo precisely. Most wirephotos have the date it was made in the caption.

But there will be photos that you know are original (clarity of image showing it was made from the original negative, paper, process, signs of aging and often even the photographer's or studio's stamp), but you don't know the exact year it was made. This is why many photos are sold as "circa 1920 studio photo" or "1930s George Burke photo."

With 1800s photos you can be certain it was made in the 1800s, in major part because they used a long since defunct process (albumen), but you regularly don't know the particular year it was made. The cardboard mounts help you identify the timeframe as styles changed. Though you may not know the exact year, you can identify a cabinet card or CDV as being from the 1860s or 1880s or 1890s by the mount-- and of course the image itself gives help.

So there will be photos where you don't know the exact year it was made, and you don't say you know.

The perfect example for you is George Burke's photos. He reused his negatives of Ruth, Dimaggio, etc over the years. Due to the distinct paper, stamps and changing addresses he used, you can identify his vintage photos from the 1930s, but not know what exact year within the 1930s it was made. Could be 1933, could be 1935 or 1937. This, of course, says that these photos can't be defined by the PSA Type system because you don't have enough information to know where a particular photo fits within the their '2 year' rule. As for me, I call them "vintage 1930s George Burke" photos-- notice the lack of the word original. If someone else wants to label them original, that's a matter of opinion and definition. The 2 year rule was PSA's pick for their system. Someone else may say it should be 1 year, 3 year, 5 year or period. The first time I heard the 2 year rule was when PSA used it. The 2 years is arbitrary, but I also understand PSA wanting a specified rule/standard for their cataloging system. Any labeling or cataloging system is going to be imperfect, with artibrary and artificial choices-- though that says there are limitations of all labeling and cataloging systems.

"All models are wrong, but some are useful"-- famed British statistician George E.P. Box

There are lots of paintings in museums-- by Michelangelo, Da Vince, Vermeer--, where they know they are originals, but don't know the exact year it was made. This is complicated because some paintings too more than a year to make. Look at the labels at museums and you'll see all sorts of guestimates as the timeframe when something was made.

There are also baseball card issues that we know are real, but there are ongoing debates when they were exactly issued.