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Posted By: Hankron

As someone who specializes in all forms of photography from all eras, this is my buying/investing tip. Even if it pictures the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings or Bronco Nagurski in rookie year, I never pay big bucks (meaning big bucks) for a photograph that has major problems with the image. I'm not talking about a crease or two, foxing or some soiling. I'm talking about when the image is out of focus or way underdeveloped. When you turn to resell a photograph you paid lots for, you want to be saying how beautiful and wonderful it is and not spending your time explaing away its image defects. This is particularly true because advanced collectors of photographs focus on the image as much if not more as I do.

In my experience, the quality of the image alone can raise the price of a Bela Lugosi or Willie Mays photo several times over.