Recently discovered that the "
ONLY known original photograph" used for the "
1922 E121 American Caramel Babe Ruth, Holding Bird" card was a 5.5x7.75 print sold by RMY Auctions in 2013:
The photo had some amazing provenance on back:
- First, it provides a wonderful explanation of the odd photo (releasing homing pigeons during a Sept 26th, 1921 Yankees/Cleveland game to provide inning by inning score updates!).
- Second, and more importantly for my research, it shows that the photo was N.E.A. (Newspaper Enterprise Association) sourced, stamped September 28, 1921.
- This gives some potential context for my copy negative.
- Could NEA have been the primary source for American Caramel card images?
Being the only known example of this photo, is encouraging as it suggests that there could have been very limited reproduction of other images used on the E121 cards outside of the Caramel set. Possibly, rights were signed over to American Caramel for these photos prior to card production? Purely speculation at this point.