Jim Tobin card or photo id

[RCMcKenzie]

This Tobin card is just over 3 x 5 and has a blank back. Is this a card or a photo? Maybe a Conlon photo? A repro Conlon photo?

It came in a mixed bag lot with all kinds of stuff like what looks to be a 1936 Goudey type 3 Simmons and 2, 3x5 Kodak postcards, one that looks like a repro 1909 Boston Sunday Herald Supplement Hooper and the other is a pcl Oakland.



simmonstobin.jpgsimmonstobinb.jpg

bshhooper.jpgbshhooperb.jpg

pclpc.jpgpclpcb.jpg

[Leon]

I think you nailed it and the Tobin does look like a photo from the scan. I have a bunch of stuff that is sort of a photo but could be a card.

[RCMcKenzie]

Thanks for posting those. I'm thinking what I have is a later generation Conlon photo.


Here is a card that uses a photo that looks like it came from the same shoot...

www.ebay.com/itm/290742256821

Interesting to note that Jim Tobin is the only major league pitcher to hit 3 home runs in one game in the 20th century. Guy Hecker hit 3 home runs in one game in the 1880's.

[thecatspajamas]

It's not uncommon to find old "snapshot-type" photos that were re-shot from earlier photos or print sources, or occasionally reproduced from the original negative. Many of these fall into the "card-sized" range, and quality of the image can vary greatly depending on the quality of the original image, the skill of the photographer reproducing it, and how many generations removed it is from the original negative. I've seen some well-known Conlon images reproduced this way that were so washed out that you could barely make out the subject. Your Tobin looks very clear, and may have been produced from the original negative, or at worst be a 2nd Generation photo.

As for whether it's a "card" or a "photo," I'm not sure it has to be one or the other. Plenty of "card" issues were produced using actual photographs. Maybe the difference is whether they were produced as part of a series, or produced in greater quantities?

[nolemmings]

I believe your Tobin photo is a Geo. Burke repro or Burke/Brace, not Conlon.

[drc]

I know in the circa 1950s, photographer Jim Rowe sold blank backed about 3x5 photos in catalogs. Probably for collecting and for TTM autograph getting. They included contemporary players and reproductions of old time players back the the 19th century. The Boston Herald repro resemble's those photos. As they were sold commercially for collectors' purposes and are about card size, some might say they are borderline baseball cards . . . I had a bunch of the photos with Rowe's typed original receipt.