Authenticating 19th century baseball cabinet cards

[Detroit58]

The king of the hill at SABR is tied with many. More than I will know I’m sure. When you contact certain auction houses, Cooperstown, etc. they send you to the king Kahoona. I have no idea what kind of deals he’s got with who. Seems to have some kind of racquet going.

[Detroit58]

I would like to thank the king Kahoona for teaching me the side by side process. I never seen it before I encountered him. I am a person who understands gratitude. I always thanked Kahoona even when he disagreed. He didn’t understand my point of an ears appearance changing as a head turns. I also questioned on some flaws in his side by side. He admitted to the questionable work, but claimed it didn’t make a difference. Most of his backing of his argument were based of his flaws. At the end of the day the only thing he claimed made the image “absolutely not him” was the hair. His scale and tilt on the photos were off creating discrepancies in the hairline. That was most of his argument. Also he said the top of his hair didn’t match known images. There was no known photographs of the player for about a 4 year span wear he was hatless. He said “absolutely not him” based of a way earlier photo and a later photo. I gave him very valid reasons why his hair would be the style it was. Just the hair? He sent blow ups of his ear claiming smoking gun “absolutely not him.” My ear matched one of the known better than the other known. You can measure the inner ear details with a tape measure. Exact. Ask the kahoona what I owe him.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Auction houses are in business to make money (so I hear) Auction houses LOVE having cool stuff from the early days of baseball (I've been told) Auction houses thrive on publicity of newly discovered items (I'm pretty sure) so what do you think the conspiracy on the part of auction houses against you stems from? Clearly what you claim to have would tick all of the boxes above, so why are auction houses cutting off their noses to spite their faces when it comes to your items?

[Detroit58]

That said card sat in limbo at one your favorite auction houses for about 5 months. I begged them usually about every 3 weeks to send it back. I don’t know if the kahoona was directly or indirectly responsible. I don’t who his ties are and how deep. We’ll move on to that card when you guys are ready. Might get interesting. How much you think I owe him?

[Detroit58]

The kahoona will tell you it’s impossible to find baseball player cabinets that are not uniformed. I noticed a few of you claimed that. I assure you it’s possible. I do owe king kahoona for that. Leaves me no competition finding them.

[drcy]

Originally Posted by Detroit58

How much you think I owe him?

An apology.

[tiger8mush]

Originally Posted by Detroit58

The kahoona will tell you it’s impossible to find baseball player cabinets that are not uniformed. I noticed a few of you claimed that.

A claim made by not a single person in this thread.

[Detroit58]

For the record. I apologized through his email. He never accepted. I tried to apologize through his SABR colleagues. I tried to apologize through his auction house. They wanted nothing to with it. I unfortunately don’t contact them anymore. I apologized through SABR messaging.

[Webster]

Farmer Vaughn Cabinet. Not only no uniform, but sold here on BST last month.

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[Detroit58]

For the record I apologized again. There is no point of authenticating for me so I will leave the forum with my tail between my legs. It’s been fun gentleman. As you were.

[Detroit58]

1 more post. Tell him I don’t need to know what he thinks of the O’Rourke, I already know.

[Detroit58]

Alright last post. I really didn’t know the kahoona had direct ties to this forum. I would have bet he did, but I just stumbled on this trying to authenticate.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Detroit58

To address the ear. Every detail is exactly the same. Appears to be slightly wider in the mid lower portion in mine. How could every detail match, but be wider in a spot you ask? I’ve had this discussion with “experts” in the past. I don’t name drop. I will explain further if you need. We can both agree that the num num Jim head is more face forward. The Gilbert and Bacon’s head is turned more. Evident by half of his mustache to be missing in my photograph. I hope we can agree your ear looks every so slightly smaller or bigger as you turn face towards or away from the the viewer. I’ve had this discussion with the SABR boys in the past on 2 Fleetwood Walker images and a George Davis. I had to explain why the appearance of the ear slightly changes as your head moves. There was dispute of some markings on Davis’ ear in a Sporting Life image to my Davis. I had to explain ad you turn your head detail slowly disappears. I did a case study on the wrinkles on my ear lobe similar to those of Davis. When I looked in the mirror and slightly turned my head,the wrinkles were very quickly no longer visible. I offered to send a video. I don’t know if they learned from me. Everybody I talk to seems to understand that ear appearance slightly changes when your turn your head. Them, no. If you look at side shot of your ear and the front they don’t look like mirror images. With every degree of turn of your head, your ear looks a little different. Understand? I’ve done the leg work as far as it can go on the uniform. Contacted the Bridgeport fire department. It’s not a fire department uniform in any way. Likely fraternal. Are you a photo expert or a uniform expert or both? If anybody wants any back story on any item that I ever show, just ask. You want to know who seen, just ask. If you want to know what the gentlemen of the Bridgeport fire told me, just ask. I can probably forward you the email. You guys have sunk a lot of trust into a few people. It’s not good when a couple control this stuff. Sometimes the have agendas. My 25 year old apprentice gave me some sound advice on the job today. Seems the technology is past the old FBI techniques. They got programs they use for court using shadowing and overlapping. Sharp kid. I’m definitely going to check into it. There’s no doubt to me it will pass. Maybe we can get some authenticating going instead a few guys controlling the market. Have you notice your boys the experts haven’t chimed in yet. I think there at the place the auction houses get to, “We cannot confirm or deny that’s the player.” Unless they want to show their butts.

In the two known good images you've shown the overall shape of the ear is oval. In the Gilbert and Bacon, it's nearly square. Getting into "details" when there's a glaring difference is nothing more than wishful thinking.

Slight changes with changed angles? Of course. But what's shown is way beyond a slight change. (Trained as a draftsman/machinist in college, and tested extremely well at spatial orientation before training. And have reverse engineered a few things from pictures.)

What makes someone and "expert" in your eyes?
Does 40+ years of experience in a wide variety of collectibles count for anything?
At least two of the people commenting above ARE EXPERTS.
What credentials do YOU have?

You talk big about stuff like "FBI facial recognition, but all you present is a very iffy image created in MS Paint that wouldn't even make a good start at drawing a face in art class.
Now it's some letter supposedly from the BFD.

If you have anything solid to support the claim, post it.
Like- You say the uniform is not fire, but fraternal. To me the buttons look like they have a fire horn in the center, followed by a D. The central figure could also be a stylized F.

But lets go with the assumption that you might be right.
What fraternal organization?
Was O'Rourke ever a member in that organization?
Can you show anything conclusive about that? Like a photo of another member of the same group wearing the same uniform? Or a membership card?

Until there's something solid, it's just typical puffery like on every sketchy ebay listing or iffy antique dealer.