Ruth Photo - Type 1

[drcy]

To me and just looking at the images, it looks as if it could be an original photo. And, as I said, I assume Legendary is being honest when they think it's original, while at the same time making no claim as to the name of the photographer (some can read between the lines of what I am saying). It's just that there are recent issues about forged stamps and writing, so they doing the unusual of allowing the winner to have it checked out.

I'm not a Ruth collector and am not up to date on the going rates for his photos, and when I looked at the listing I didn't realize the price was supposedly low. If the winning bid had been $80 I'd have definitely wondered what was going on, but to me at the time $1000 plus for a cropped photo seemed like a healthy amount of money.

To be honest, from my observations of auctions and knowledge of photos, I don't believe there is this hidden league of expansive thinking baseball photo expert bidders (I didn't at all say there were none). I often observe exotic and rare baseball photos that go undervalued (IMO), specifically because most bidders don't understand the significance and rarity of those photos. I've on occasion even had to contact sports auctions houses themselves to tell them that what they had was much rarer and better and sometimes older than they were describing. So, no, I don't always see wild fluctuations in pricing as an expression of a bastion of knowledge-- I often see it as a sign of an immature hobby. As with baseball cards, some types and subjects get hot and some don't-- and baseball collectors are very subject centric, often at the expense of aesthetics. As Mark Macrae and I agreed on at the Seattle show, once a baseball cabinet card or CDV is called a "baseball card" it's values go up, because all the baseball card collectors, who may or may not be interested or knowledgeable in photography, start bidding. He was showing me one of his cabinet cards and jokingly said "This cabinet card-- I mean BASE BALL CARD..." Just in case any potential baseball card buyer nearby was overhearing.