Scammer? or entrepeneur?

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Check out what this guy is doing:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Real-Photo-Antique-Baseball-Lot-5-Photographs-Teams_W0QQitemZ6241587955QQcategoryZ13705QQrdZ1QQc mdZViewItem

Now look and see what kind of auctions he's won in the last couple of weeks.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67375&item=7574438395

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67375&item=7574438395

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15226&item=7569026150

Now how does one go about classifying those photos? Are they period?

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Posted By: Joann

I'm more interested in knowing how the heck you guys come up with these things?? Wow. I probably would have clicked right through that one, except maybe the low BIN price may have caught my eye.

Still though, I don't know how you guys can remember a card from an auction 15 months ago, think to click through an ebay auction down to seller's previous buys, etc. Something has to either a) be something I'm looking for or b) hit me squarely between the eyes as not looking right, for me to give it serious notice.

Not casting any aspersions on this seller - as I'm sure Daniel isn't either. I'm just amazed at the ways you guys can notice things.

J

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Posted By: t206King

THIS IS SOOOOO FUNNY. he thinks there real photos (the guy selling them) if u look carfully, there not really stained, nor any wear of any kind. taking photo shop in college i can tell the paper is alot newer than whats in the pics. like 1947 lol one item he won lol, toooooo many scammers on eBay!!!!!!

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

What makes him real dangerous though is he's got good feedback and a powerseller to boot. People might take his eBay rep as it being real.

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Posted By: Brian H (misunderestimated)

EOM

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Posted By: davidcyleback

He describes some of the photos as having 'Velox' printed on the back. The word Velox did not first appear on photo paper until well after all the images were shot.

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Posted By: pete

at least he could of waited the 90 days for the feedback 'item viewing' to drop off...

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Posted By: davidcyleback

The seller writes, "The large photo appears to be an Azo print." How many here would guess he came to that conclusion because it said 'Azo' on the box of photopaper he bought?

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Posted By: Chris Mc

When I read the description ,"This is a very nice real photo lot of FIVE antique baseball photographs" my take was that it was a photo of a photo and my interest ceased there. Upon reading the rest of the description it is deceiving.

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Posted By: identify7

He is asking $70 for his design, materials, manufacture and shipping of items which he has reprinted. I think that he has created a product of sufficient quality to be of interest to some.

Although his eBay offering can be misinterpteted, he has capped the bidding with a reasonable BIN. I believe this is a legitimate, creative attempt to produce something marketable. As such, I wish him well.

Maybe next time he will make something I may be interested in. But I doubt it.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I emailed him and asked him if these were recently produced photos on old paper and have yet to hear back from him. I think it's obvious that he's being deliberatly misleading about the age of these photos - especially if you look at some of his other offerings. However the BIN price is so low that it's more a nuisance than anything else. And of course 19th century images on Velox paper isn't going to fool too many people.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Not that it matters, but for what it's worth- in the photo in the upper right of the two men wearing striped jackets, the man to the right is Amos Alonzo Stagg, the legendary football coach. That's a famous photo, and I've owned the original, and the one pictured in this lot is as bogus as the other four.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Well here's his response:

"I would love to create photos of this quality from this collection. I believe these are not reproductions. However, I am buying a great deal of vintage paper from different time periods in order to date those photos in my collection and see what results can be had with old paper. Really old photo paper simply isn't any good 90% of the time and what might be usable ends up being extremely expensive if you do the math of all the paper one must buy just to find usable stock. If this paper is not stored just perfectly over many decades, it is not any good and gives a bad result even if you are lucky enough to have rare negatives to use with it. I am also placing these results on a website to help others date their own photo finds according to Kodak logo marks and surface variables. Ebay does not allow me to reference buyers to this website. I have seen many reproductions and websites exposing these and would expect any high-quality reproduction to command more money than what is given on ebay. Ebay does not allow me to reference these websites to buyers. If you can reproduce antique photos at this quality, please let me know how. Thanks."

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Posted By: Jeff

I find this whole thread of interest. Probably for sticking my nose where it does not belong, buying photos. I won one of these auctions from this seller recently for a so called old photo, which I didn't get in the mail yet. This is only the second picture I have ever bought. I know little to nothing about them and only bid because the guy in the back row on the right looked to me to be Buck Ewing. Has anyone ever seen this photo or any of the players pictures? Here is a link to that auction.



<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6238630799&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1" target="_new"






The thing I really don't like besides all that has been brought up already is that the auction that Daniel first posted about with the 2 team cards where sold by this seller to Dan? (Was featured in the first Old Cardboard issue)



<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=13705&item=6225818908" target="_new"



<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=13705&item=6225818908" target="_new"



The other photo I bought I am hoping will have less issues surrounding it. It is hopefully an old Matty picture with what I am now hoping is the signature of photographer Sy Siedman on the back. One of his pictures sold in a recent Hunt auction, that featured Cobb.
It has some wrinkles and looks like the shiny part is separate from the picture almost like a plastic covering on it. Is that normal for old pictures? I should have gotten them books from you David when you where giving them away years ago, never thought I would buy any pictures then and may not again now.

Edited for adding the wrong link.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The good news is that Sy Seidman was a NYC news photographer when Mathewson was playing, and, since most people have never heard of Seidman, it would seem unlikely anyone is faking his name on the back of photos. The average baseball photo forger would describe his creation as a 'Bain' or a 'Conlon,' not a 'Seidman.'

Old gelatin silver photos, like with an original 1910s Ty Cobb or Mathewson, have a thin coating of gelatin on the front, used to hold the photochemicals to the paper. The gelatin is transparent and usually shiney. It's possible that the gelatin is what you describe as a plastic coating. Collectors of lower grade T200 Fatimas (gelatin silver photos) sometimes notice the gelatin when the card has a tear or worn edge.

Attractive original Christy Mathewson photos by professional photographers like Seidman are scarce and highly desirable in the hobby. If your is original, and naturally we all hope it is, you have a nice item.

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Posted By: Jeff

David, Thank you for all of your help again on the Matty, it is as you said with the shiny covering. I added some pictures but you cant tell from that. Now my question is this, would the other picture I bought from the seller on ebay have this same type of finish or should it be different because it is from a different era supposedly?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Your above photo appears like an official news photo and not some basement made creation. It may have been made a few years after the image was shot (this was done by legitimate news services and photographers, including folks like George Burke) but none the less appears to be a legitimate news photo.

As far as your other photo goes, I haven't seen it and don't know the year of the subject. If it's an 1880s subject it will be much easier to identify problems as 1880s are subantially different than many 1920s photos. In particular, an 1880s baseball photo will almost always be mounted (the paper photo pasted to a cardboard sheet or similar 'mount').

For collecting old sports photos, many collectors will have a list of stamps to look for. Some photo services and photographers were around for a small period of time. For example, ACME Newspictures changed its name in the 1950s. This means that, while the ACME stamp doesn't pinpoint a year, it shows that that Red Grange photo is at least old. George Grantham Bain died in 1941 so his stamp on a photo not only proves it was by the ever popular photographer but the photo is old. Some big aucton houses like MastroNet and REA will picture or mention the stamp on the back in auction. Along with having a feel for what old photos look like and dealing with kowledgeable sellers, this is is the type of stuff many photo collectors look for.

A stamp from a well known company or photographer also shows that the photo is 'official'-- meaning the photo was made by someone or some organization who had the legal/contractural rights to make the photo. An MGM stamp on the back may not pinpoint the year of that W.C. Fields photo, but does show that it was officially made by or for MGM. Many photo collectors are only interested in official photographs, just as many modern baseball collectors pass on Broders and unauthorized reprint issues. And notice I referred to the above Mathewson as appearing to be an 'official news photo.'

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Posted By: Jeff

David,
Thank you for all of the information on these pictures. I will add more to this post when I get the other picture from the seller above. Thanks, Jeff

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I asked this guy where the photos orginated and this is what he told me:

"These came from the estate of an API photographer who was in his 90s when he died. I was told that he worked with the best in the news and photography field in his day, but that his own negatives were donated to various organizations and also to the National Archives along with some of his friends. His son was also very active in photography and some of his photos got into this estate auction as well. What I bought was the leftovers and not all that exciting to me, so I didn't sell any of these for over two years. Some of his photographs went for thousands of dollars. I know this is all very confusing and I'm not an expert and have no desire sell many more of these. Thanks."

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Posted By: identify7

Oh, an Estate Sale of an API photographer. Well that explains it. I thought that he may be making these himself. Silly me.

But didn't Mr. Rudd say "He describes some of the photos as having 'Velox' printed on the back. The word Velox did not first appear on photo paper until well after all the images were shot"?

How could that be?

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I think when he says "I know this is all very confusing and I'm not an expert and have no desire sell many more of these. Thanks." he's really saying "You got me."

I noticed from some of the links above that ebay seller GTP.RO bought some of these photos. It would be interesting to hear from him what he thought about them.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

A lot of this comes down to what the buyer paid. For the in dispute seller, he had 5 photos with a BIN of $65 (bid now $5). Even if they are fakes, someone paying $13 per photo is far from the end of the world. People spend $13 for lunch at McDonalds.

I don't know what Jeff paid, but my guess is he paid a reasonable price for the Mathewson photo (I'm assuming he paid a lot more than $12). And isn't that most common buyer question? "Did I pay a fair price?"

I suspect most collectors would rather pay a fair price for a misidentified item than way overpay for a correctly identified item.

I once won an 1800s photo picturing an 'unknown Cuban baseball player' from one of the famous auction houses. When I received the photo I saw the photo clearly was not from the 19th century but the early 1900s, and the player in the picture was not a Cuban nobody but an American Hall of Famer. The funny thing is the two auction house mistakes cancelled each other out financially and the photo was worth about the same! As a collector, the item I received wasn't what I expected, but I still was satisfied with my purchase.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I don't think he's really ripping anyone off at these prices, but in the very least he is being misleading. I'm just not sure that he's really fooling anyone, but the truly novice. OTOH if you look at his completed auctions you can see that he sold a civil war photo for more than $100 that he claims is from that era.

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Posted By: Jeff

David,
You hit it right on, I did pay $12.00 for the Matty picture. But I also had to add in $5.00 for shipping. So I am hoping it is at the least worth my $17.00 investment.
(Insert smiley face here)

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Jeff, your Mathewson is worth more than the $17 you paid for it. I'm surprised you got it that cheap.