1907 Detroit Tigers photo postcard
 

To our experienced postcard collectors, I need your insight.

First off, I have little experience with the collecting/purchasing of vintage postcards. But as a huge fan of vintage Tigers memorabilia, I was seriously considering bidding on this item, which sold on eBay early today for $262.87:


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Post...#ht_266wt_1399


But I just could not get over how different the corners viewed from the front (all four well rounded) of the postcard differed from the view from the back (one rounded, three fairly sharp). That did not seem right to me, especially in light of having had collected vintage tobacco/candy cards in years past. So I contacted the seller, suspecting he used a stock photo for the back. But he replied the scan of the back is the actual item. I asked why the corners on the front did not correspond with the condition of the corners on the back. He replied again, that the images in the listing are of the actual item.

In your opinion, is it unusual for the corner wear to appear so different depending upon which side of the postcard is viewed ? Any other insight you might provide should I chance upon another postcard opportunity in the future?

Card looks fine to me. Being it was listed in an improper category for it, I think it went for about 1/3 of what it would have gone for in a better viewed auction.

It looks like, and this is just a guess here, that the scan of the back may have been cropped too close, cutting off some of the "rounded corner" appearance? I'm not sure. There's something odd about the way the front and back scans are combined into one image. Can't quite put my finger on it though, and not saying it was anything done intentionally to deceive.

The more I look at it, the more it appears he first did one scan of the PC front and the toploader it was in laid on the glass below it (to allow for enough space in the scanned image to insert the scan of the back). Then he went back and cropped out the area for the PC back, creating the large white rectangle, but left a sliver of the scanned toploader still in the image. Then he did a separate scan of the back and copy/pasted it into the white area, but when he copied the back, he didn't extend the copied area far enough at the upper left corner, resulting in the trimmed appearance of the top and left edges of the back view.

That's my take on it anyway. As to authenticity, I'll defer to Leon as he has wayyyy more experience with such things.

Yes, the back scan looks messed up. I had this exact same type postcard before, in lesser condition and it went for quite a bit more than this auction went for.

Somebody got a good deal...the back scan is just badly cropped.

Agreed, nice pick-up by the buyer.

Glad to see everyone thinks it was a good buy, I'm the guy that won the auction. I just received the cards yesterday and the corners are all rounded. The seller also had the Cubs version for sale, which I won for a little over $200. Sending them off to SGC this week, pretty stoked!! I'll attach some pics.

Back pics

Great postcards...congrats!