Apologies for re-animating a two-year-old thread, but I thought a few people might be interested in some possibly new info regarding the 1902 Bain-stamped Mathewson photos discussed above. I've been researching these photos on and off for a while just out of general photo/Bain/Matty curiosity, but when I acquired one of the images a couple of months ago I put a little more time into it, and I'm pretty sure I may have found the original publication source. Up til now the dating of this sequence of Matty photos has been pretty loose...anything from 1901 to 1904. Henry Yee/PSA has always used the "1900's" designation when certing these Type 1's.
So then finally, this...The NY Sunday Telegraph, May 11, 1902:
All five known photos in this sequence are here, plus two additional of Matty is street clothes. Being a whole-page feature, I would tend to think that these photos were shot specifically for this story, as opposed to using existing stock.
Even better, it appears that my photo is one of the exact prints used in the layout of this newspaper story. See the edit box around Mathewson. Various characteristics of the inked lines match up exactly:
Last thing, these photos were definitely taken at the Polo Grounds. The windowed shed and the scoreboard behind Mathewson were in the right field corner in 1902. See this photo taken at the Polo Grounds in 1901:
