opinions on this Ruth photo

[JoeyF1981]

Was thinking about purchasing this 1921 Ruth photo but wanted to get peoples opinions on it first? Whats a good price to pay? Looks like the guy fell asleep standing up..lol

[UOFLfan7]

Originally Posted by JoeyF1981

Was thinking about purchasing this 1921 Ruth photo but wanted to get peoples opinions on it first? Whats a good price to pay? Looks like the guy fell asleep standing up..lol

I by no means am an expert on this type of thing since I don't commonly collect pictures, but as far as I can tell the picture seems legit and not a copy or reprint. It seems like it shows age, and the back looks right for that era.

Umm regarding price...I honestly can't really say. It's a nice picture, but honestly I wouldn't pay more than maybe $10.00-$20.00 for it, mainly cause collecting pictures have never been much of an interest to me lol.

The man who is sleep standing might be someone important or famous, so that would be the first thing I look up to see if he is, cause that would drive the price up a bit.

[ibuysportsephemera]

IMO, putting a value on a press/wire photo is very different then other types of memorabilia. I collect photos and in most cases you will find that beauty and price is in the eye of the beholder. Obviously significant events and players demand more in general. With regard to your photo, there are many original photos of Babe Ruth. Without a caption identifying the situation, I think it is a pretty common photo.

Just my 2¢.

[ScottFandango]

How do you get someone's photo in your photobucket so quick?

Why not just give us a link to the auction? Much easier....

Or copy the photos as an attachment....again much easier than photobucket ...

Dont people usually reserve photobucket for things they OWN ALREADY?

[drcy]

I wouldn't bid on it.

[thecatspajamas]

I wouldn't pay $350 for it.

[drcy]

I cheated and read the eBay description. The seller says it's on thin cardstock, which seems highly unlikely. News photos weren't on card stock. They were on thin paper. He says it's 8x10, which is not an impossible size, but is unusual for the time. The photo has little wear which is unusual (though not impossible). And the masking tape strikes me as odd. My thought was masking tape is the one modern tape a reprinter could use that looks old.

[thecatspajamas]

I could be wrong, but isn't that a second generation photo as well? I can't recall ever seeing an original news photo from that period with a black border around the obverse image, which I assume is why the seller alludes to it being a "proof". At first, I thought the black border in the first image was the scanner background, but then looking at the second scan, you can see the scanner background is white. I think the first image is just cropped closely to the edges of the photo.

Other than that meager observation, I'll defer to drc's expertise.