REA's 1910 Cobb Sliding Photo LET THE BUYER BEWARE

[drcy]

I just looked at the PSA label, and the date says "c. 1910s." I'd refer to that rather than the type number they give. There is an obvious conflict between that dating and the type number next to it. PSA/DNA's type and "original" definition says "within approximately two years of when the picture was taken," while the dating on the label doesn't even pinpoint the photo to an exact decade.

1930s-40s George Burke photos are the same deal. You know the era they were made by the back stamp (Burke changed stamp and studio address), but usually don't know what year they were made (1930 versus 1933, 1935 versus 1941). I call those Burke photos "vintage."

These photos shouldn't be assigned a type number because they don't know exactly when they were made.

As I said, there's nothing errant without not knowing details about a photo. With most baseball tintypes, the identities of the players and even teams and state are usually not known, and you very rarely know the exact year. You give an opinion about the decade due to the photo's physicality, uniforms, photo studio backdrop, etc.-- and you usually can be certain that the tintype or cabinet card is from the 1860s versus the 1880s. On the other hand, many news photos have the printing date stamped or tagged right on the photo, so they can often be dated to the day. Most news photos were made for specific news events, so can be reliably dated to the year without a date stamp or dated tag due to that circumstance. Same with many Hollywood movie photos. There are many other photos with other supporting physical evidence that you can logically and very reasonably assume (and label) the photo was made the year it was shot: a snapshot, family picnic real photo postcard, a high school senior portrait, most of the photos in a family photo album. This explains why a photo expert can confidentally call a photo original without knowing the year it was shot and printed. Though that's not the case with many of the Burke and the Cobb photos, as we know the images were put out by the photographers over a relatively large timespan.

I don't think it's logically and honestly arguable that a PSA/DNA type number can be given to the Conlon photo. Your label or description of an item can't be more specific than your knowledge. That's authentication and identification 101.