Original negatives- underrated? Show yours

[btcarfagno]

I almost fainted when I saw that. The Cobb slide photo original negative? That is likely the most famous photo in the history of the sport.

I think that your ideas seem to also be the desire of the auction house as well, as they are not splitting it up to maximize profit. Unless that is a stipulation of the sale perhaps.

Absolutely amazing.

Tom C

[Forever Young]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

I almost fainted when I saw that. The Cobb slide photo original negative? That is likely the most famous photo in the history of the sport.

I think that your ideas seem to also be the desire of the auction house as well, as they are not splitting it up to maximize profit. Unless that is a stipulation of the sale perhaps.

Absolutely amazing.

Tom C

Yes.. .at first I was disappointed(for selfish reasons) as I wanted to own as many as I could afford and really wanted to own a Ruth AND Gehrig for my collection.
After the initial disappointment, I was relieved as it really does all need to stay together for historical purpose and cataloguing. Conlon is the backbone of baseball photography\imagry.
I would hate to see it split up like the Burke negatives. All of that Burke history lost/scattered and sold for peanuts/blown out. The burke negatives really could have helped grow the hobby as they were all numbered.. collectible. Almost like a baseball card set imo. Had great potential.
The former owner of these two archives really messed things up. Thank goodness these Conlons stayed in tact!!

[D. Bergin]

Wow, just wow.

That's gotta rank as the most significant single sports auction lot ever.

[Forever Young]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Wow, just wow.

That's gotta rank as the most significant single sports auction lot ever.

Yes Dave.. I AGREE 100 percent.

[pherbener]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Wow, just wow.

That's gotta rank as the most significant single sports auction lot ever.

^^^^^^^ This

What an incredible group of images! I often look at items and wish I had unlimited funds but this is amazing!

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Forever Young

Yes.. .at first I was disappointed(for selfish reasons) as I wanted to own as many as I could afford and really wanted to own a Ruth AND Gehrig for my collection.
After the initial disappointment, I was relieved as it really does all need to stay together for historical purpose and cataloguing. Conlon is the backbone of baseball photography\imagry.
I would hate to see it split up like the Burke negatives. All of that Burke history lost/scattered and sold for peanuts/blown out. The burke negatives really could have helped grow the hobby as they were all numbered.. collectible. Almost like a baseball card set imo. Had great potential.
The former owner of these two archives really messed things up. Thank goodness these Conlons stayed in tact!!

My sentiments exactly! While the break-up of the Burke/Brace archive enabled me to pick up a lot of their original negatives and further my research, it sickens me how that while deal went down and that the original concentration of visual history is now scattered to the winds. The fact that Mary Brace got screwed over in the deal too is an added downer.

Hopefully whoever winds up with the Conlon archive will make the images publicly viewable and enjoyable in process of making them profitable, as Rogers did for a time when he had the Conlon archive online. Unfortunately he never did the same thing with the Burke/Brace archive, so we'll probably never know what/who all was in there.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

My sentiments exactly! While the break-up of the Burke/Brace archive enabled me to pick up a lot of their original negatives and further my research, it sickens me how that while deal went down and that the original concentration of visual history is now scattered to the winds. The fact that Mary Brace got screwed over in the deal too is an added downer.

Hopefully whoever winds up with the Conlon archive will make the images publicly viewable and enjoyable in process of making them profitable, as Rogers did for a time when he had the Conlon archive online. Unfortunately he never did the same thing with the Burke/Brace archive, so we'll probably never know what/who all was in there.

Wasn't there a master list for the Burke Brace stuff? I seem to remember an auction lot with thousands of them, and I think I had a full listing of what was in there.

Tom C

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

Wasn't there a master list for the Burke Brace stuff? I seem to remember an auction lot with thousands of them, and I think I had a full listing of what was in there.

Tom C

There was a large lot of negatives that was listed several years ago that I believe was from the estate of Jim Rowe. It might have had a complete listing, but I can't recall. You've got my curiosity up now though as I hadn't considered that before.

Other than that, there are the one-sheet "catalogs" that Burke produced, but which only cover his years of activity. I have one, and have photos of another that Ben was kind enough to provide, that list the major leaguer players and team combinations that were active and who Burke photographed. They don't cover George Brace's decades of activity though, or the minor leaguers and older "old time player" photos that they reshot and reproduced. Some of the Brace era players were listed on the bracephoto website when it was active, but not all.

Presumably (hopefully) Rogers had all of the negatives scanned before selling them, but if so, the complete "catalog" of images was never made available to the public (to my knowledge), and the archive of scans may or may not be housed on one of the hard drives that he broke back into his offices to retrieve. I'm not sure if those hard drives were ever produced during the trials, or what their status is now. I'm sure that whoever wins the Conlon collection would love to not have to re-scan all of those negatives!

[bgar3]

In the early 1990's there was a large group of original glass plate negatives, possibly even more than one lot. A friend of mine purchased them all, I think. They were all identified, in glassine envelopes, and stored in original wooden crates. Not sure of the exact number, but I believe there were several hundred, including multiples of all the major stars, circa 1910 to 20. I am not sure of the date, but it is possible it was the Leland auction that featured Harry Stevens' collection. If someone has a run of older Leland's catalogues they might be able to get greater details. We believed at the time, they included the work of all the motor photographers. My friend is a very private collector, but I will try to find out more details. I do not believe they were very expensive at all.

[GKreindler]

I have the Lelands catalog for the Harry M. Stevens collection, but I'm pretty sure the negatives offered therein are from Francis Burke, rather than George (though I'll double check today). It's a shame that he was replaced when they found the latter, as his work was absolutely stellar. I really think his work was on par with people like Bain and Conlon, though we'll never know whether it approached the same breadth.

And, I hate to say it, but whomever wins the Conlon negatives, well, I hope they actually do decide to have them rescanned. I know, I know, it's a monumental undertaking and seems pointless. However, I'm absolutely convinced that JR's people really screwed the pooch when they did just that. I'd say a lot of the scans turned out nicely, but there are so many that had piss-poor retouching done to them, and as a result, really detract from the overall image.

One of the harshest victims was Paul Waner:







Yeeeeeaaahhh. I'm sorry, but the original negatives do NOT look like this. Perhaps there are imperfections here and there, but by I can't see why they were altered this drastically in Photoshop. And believe me, there are a LOT more where that came from (though Waner's are probably the worst).

Excuse me while I go have some nightmares.

[Keith_Loving]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

There was a large lot of negatives that was listed several years ago that I believe was from the estate of Jim Rowe. It might have had a complete listing, but I can't recall. You've got my curiosity up now though as I hadn't considered that before.

Other than that, there are the one-sheet "catalogs" that Burke produced, but which only cover his years of activity. I have one, and have photos of another that Ben was kind enough to provide, that list the major leaguer players and team combinations that were active and who Burke photographed. They don't cover George Brace's decades of activity though, or the minor leaguers and older "old time player" photos that they reshot and reproduced. Some of the Brace era players were listed on the bracephoto website when it was active, but not all.

Presumably (hopefully) Rogers had all of the negatives scanned before selling them, but if so, the complete "catalog" of images was never made available to the public (to my knowledge), and the archive of scans may or may not be housed on one of the hard drives that he broke back into his offices to retrieve. I'm not sure if those hard drives were ever produced during the trials, or what their status is now. I'm sure that whoever wins the Conlon collection would love to not have to re-scan all of those negatives!

Hi,

I also have an original Burke Checklist. My checklist is numbered from 1 - 825. I am not sure how old this one is, but my guess would be prior to 1936. I say that because a player that I was hoping would be listed on this list isn't on the list and his first Burke photo was in 1936 when he played for the Columbus Red Birds and St. Louis Cardinals.

I would be interested in knowing how high the numbers go on yours and Ben's checklists. I'd be interested in possibly trading for a more recent checklist if it has the name of the particular player that I desire to have on the list.

If there is a need, I do have my checklist scanned...

[thecatspajamas]

PM sent. The catalog list that I have is dated August 1940. The one Ben had (has?) notes that it is a "Supplement to List of August, 1940" at the top. Both of these lists are of Major League players (American and National Leagues), though if your guy played in the minors and went on to play in the majors, he likely would have kept the same catalog identification number in Burke's archive. I also have a kind of running compilation of catalog numbers not represented in these catalogs that I have accumulated over time, if you would like me to take a look. The highest ID number I have recorded is Herman Besse at 6054, but I do not know if that is the end of the catalog. Burke did have separate catalog lists for "old time" (pre-1929) players, players in civvies, and minor league players, but I have never run across any of these, and only have numbers from these based on the scattered physical prints I have run across (if anyone has one of these other catalogs, or has scans of one available, please let me know).