Ruth photos I found at estate sale
 

I went to a sale at a very wealthy estate over the weekend and picked up these photos at what I hope (pray) was a decent price. Wanted to show them off. I probably won't keep them -- more of a card guy -- but I can certainly appreciate the beauty of the images and understand why people collect them. Also wanted to get opinions on authenticity and how I should handle selling them. Probably go the auction route if they're real. I would presume I should get them authenticated by PSA first. Or would an auction house do that? They appear to be Type 1 because of the photo stamps, but I am by no means an expert. And they're framed right now (beautifully so). The framers made photo copies of the backs of the photos and affixed the copies to the backside of the frames. I guess I'll have to remove the photos from the frames to be certain of authenticity, and of course to submit them if I go that route. Kind of a shame because the framing is well done.

I really love all three images. Two are Paul Thompson photos. The other I'm not sure about, but it's an image from the day Yankee Stadium opened in 1923. Incredible! Anyone know who the photographer on that one might have been? I found a similar image online but never one for sale. Another copy of the Thompson in the dugout sold for about $5000 in a Legendary auction in 2010. Think the others have similar value? The opening day at Yankee Stadium with the little kid kinda blows me away. There were some great photos at the sale, though some I believe were later prints. If I were well off, I would have bought them all. Of course, the reason I go to these sales is because I'm not well off. :)

This sale was amazing. The guy collected everything. I also bought an original Ebbets Field stadium seat and got a pretty good deal on it. The seat still had the Sotheby's tags on it from when he purchased it at auction (I presume).

Anyway, here are the photos. (Sorry I couldn't get better images. The light reflected off the glass when I took the photos.) Love to hear what you all think of these. Rob

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Can't give an opinion on the photos, but what other baseball stuff was there and how were the prices?

If they're the originals they are great. The only way to know is to remove them to look them or a different board member has the originals in their collection, then they are copies. Great score if they're original
matt

What do those little circular labels on the back say? They look familiar—a lot of the photos that come from the archives of different publications have something like that: example.

Maybe this helps a little.

Other than some cool old photos and the stadium seat, I saw no other baseball memorabilia. It appears the person was a collecting dabbler. There was a little bit of everything: antiques, music memorabilia, some signed hockey and soccer jerseys, movie memorabilia and on and on. I guess when you have that kind of disposable income, it would be fun to dabble.

The labels in the corner says Baseball Magazine. There were other photos that featured players reading copies of Baseball Magazine so some in the collection must have been from the archive. I thought those were overpriced so I didn't purchase them.

If they're originals, they're all very valuable as they're grade A Ruth poses. Won't take too much effort to remove the photos and see if the photo backs are originals of the photocopies.

The backs are photocopies of real stamps, so I assume the fronts are forgeries.

They are photocopies, but the story is the framer photocopied the photo backs and placed the pictured photocopies on the back of the frame. The pictures are the backs of the frames.

Exactly, David. I won't know for certain until I remove the photos from the frames. Haven't had a chance yet. If they turn out to be obvious photocopies/forgeries, you'll probably hear my scream. :)
But my instincts tell me, based on the house from which they came, and the markings, that they're the real deal. They appear to have come from the 1996Christie's auction of the Baseball Magazine archives.

Thanks for the input. I'll probably end up consigning them somewhere. Just trying to figure out where. A few folks have recommended Henry Yee. He seems to get good prices and has a nice following.
Thanks again, guys.
Rob

As of his last auction, I had heard that Henry Yee was no longer accepting others items for his auctions. The explanation I heard was that ebay fees made it not financially worthwhile for him to accept consignments.
If they are real, you should consider Rhys Yeakley's auction house as well. (RMY Auctions).


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Mark, Henry's auction is up and running on ebay now :D