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ParparJulie...and fellow VBC posters...thanks for your suggestions, leads, and tips.
As you know, I'm scouting for high-quality, reproducible images for the Hoy biography I'm working on. I still don't have access to a clean version of the Old Judge card showing Hoy standing and catching a fly ball (full face, looking and reaching up towards ball suspended from string). The only photo I have is from the archives of "Sporting News," and Hoy's figure has been outlined in India ink. I also tried test-printing some of the scans you sent me, but they didn't come out well. I get best results with .TIFF and .EP, not .JPG. Everyone who helps with the book is getting credited in the "Acknowledgements" page(s). (That roster, I'm happy to say, is steadily increasing.) Andy, thanks for your input---what's your last name?
As you may know, the American Memory department of the Library of Congress (www.memory.loc.gov) has a fabulous collection of vintage baseball cards, the Benjamin K. Edwards Collection, and it's posted online in full color. Visitors to the LOC Website can browse through or search the cards by player's name, team, league, or series. The card backs, whenever they have any captions or logos, are posted too.
A couple of dealers are selling a CD-ROM that evidently encompasses most of this collection: "Old Baseball Card Photographs 1887-1914." The information included with the two dealers' posts is identical. One's selling it for $6.95 with $3.50 S&H, the other for $9.95, S&H included. Have you seen the CD? Is this legit? Can you make any judgments on the quality of the images? And would there be a copyright problem if I used any of the CD-ROM's images for my book? (Assuming that this is feasible.) The cards are in the public domain, but LOC charge for reproductions made of items in its collections. Since I'd like to imclude cards showing Hoy's teammates on the Washington Senators, and others, such as the St. Louis Browns and Cincinnati Reds, who are depicted in the N172 and other series, this would be a costly proposition if I order, say, transparencies from the LOC. Any advice?
Thanks to sites like the VBC Forum, I'm augmenting my knowledge about authentic and fake cards, and being cautious of online dealers' claims. I can't claim to be a maven, but I'm aware that there are plenty of scams and flim-flam in this business, and so it's always good to be able to ask the experts.
The book progresses daily.