I am in need of a little photo help

[Lordstan]

Hello All,

I bought this on the bay a few days ago.
I got the pic today.
I'm torn because the pic has excellent clarity and has an older feeling paper quality, but the stamp doesn't match.
The Press stamp is United Press International. According to Fogel and Yee's book, those two companies didn't join until 1958, so the stamp is from after then.
Also, the uniform looks to be from the 1927-1930 time frame, when they wore "Yankees" across the chest and not "New York."
This means that the writing on the back is also not accurate. Could the writer have meant 1928?

Do you think it still could be original or Type 1? Is it possible it wasn't stamped originally?

Any other thoughts?

The seller is new, but he did insure it on his dime and he will accept returns in three days.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks all in advance,
Mark

[Lordstan]

OK,
I got a little help from Graig Kreindler.
"And after a little research, the only games during the '28 season in which Gehrig hit a homer at Shibe were on April 13 and May 25. From the look of the angle of the shadows and the such, I'm thinking it was probably the April game. the look of the attendance and the sweater worn by the third-base coach also point it in that direction. "

Also, we both agree that the catcher is Cochrane.

[D. Bergin]

I would date it to the stamp on the back.

My gut feeling on the paper texture tells me it's not an earlier print with a later stamp.

[thecatspajamas]

Keep in mind that the date the photo was taken and the date the print was produced could be different. Unfortunately, with UPI, the back-stamping was sometimes done later at a later date which can confuse the issue. When United Press and International News merged in 1958, they went back and stamped a lot of previously-unstamped photos with the new UPI stamp style. The stamping style on the back of your photo is the one they used from 1958 through the early 1970s, and even though the lack of a zip code in the address of the stamp would seem to indicate pre-1962, some bureaus did not update their stamps for several years after the zip code was introduced.

It's a nice looking vintage photo for sure. If you wanted to be sure if it's a Type I or not, your best bet would be to send it in to PSA for certification. I believe Henry Yee (one of the authors you quoted) is heavily involved with that service and should be able to determine if it is a Type I photo from the original period, or a Type 2 re-strike from the late 1950's-60's.

[drc]

It's from the UPI days. As UPI owned the original negatives, their 'printed later' photos could be crystal clear.

For me, whether or not you return is based on what you paid. It's still a nice official UPI photo if you didn't pay too much for it.

[thecatspajamas]

That's true, but would still be termed a "Type 2" photo (which is a photo printed from the original negative but at a later date than the original photo was taken). Technically, if you had the same negative, you could still produce Type 2 photos from it now.

The only reason it would matter though is if you are trying to sell it, as the Type 1 photos will typically carry a premium over Type 2, even if the quality of the print is identical. If you're just enjoying it as part of your collection, which "Type" photo it is shouldn't matter as long as it's a nice image that is enjoyable to you.

In this case, since you're considering whether to return it or not, it would depend on how the seller described the photo. If he just said "vintage," it definitely is that. If he said "old news photo" it's that too. If he said "Type 1 Original" photo but doesn't know enough about it to back that up, you might have grounds for returning it. If you got the photo for a good price and you like it though, you'll have to weigh whether the possibility of it not having that "Type 1" status is worth giving up a crisp, quality vintage photograph. Whatever the case, if the seller is new and willing to learn, you might help him out with some of the terminology so that he doesn't make the same mistake again.

[Lordstan]

Thanks to all who chimed in so far.

To fill in a few blanks:

I paid $131 for it. It's not truckloads, but not cheap either.

This is his description cut and pasted from the auction.

" Original Wire photo from 1938 - Official Type 1 Print. Gehrig touches Homeplate after a Home Run!

Great Condition and stamped by United Press International in 1938.

If you need any more shots of the photo, or have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!"

Cats and DRC, your points are all well taken.
The crux of the matter really is the price. The pic is really nice and clear with some "vintageness" to it though not of the original time period. I guess I will have to decide if $131 is too much to pay for a 1950-60's type 2 or re-strike of this pic. My initial instinct is to send it back and use the money for other stuff, but I am still torn.

I also don't get the vibe from the emails we exchanged that the seller is doing anything on purpose. My suspicion is that he may not understand, nor be able to identify, using stamps and the like, some of the differences between the photo types. If I do return it, I will be explaining this all to him.

Does anyone have any other differing opinions to add?

[drc]

I think it's worth less than what you paid. If you had paid $30, then I'd say keeping it was a fair option.

If the seller knew nothing about the stamping, I could see how he assumed it was type 1. Has a photo service stamp and the image is sharp. But it isn't type 1. If the seller says it was an honest error, I have no reason not to believe him.

Just so you know, I've had a lot of these 'printed later' UPI photos of 1920s-30s baseball and I can see how they could fool collectors as originals. The paper is 'old fashioned' and the images are crystal clear. UPI wasn't trying to fool anyone, but they're high quality reprints. Reprints usually don't have that quality of images, so are more clearly reprints.