Knickerbocker Photo (Update)

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by OldOriole

Let's sum up the responses on the alleged Knickerbocker image:

YES:
1) Snowman - "I'm definitely leaning toward yes" (post #33). I'll count this as a 'yes', even though he also said "I won't bet on the Knickerbockers photo". (post 96)

NOT SURE:
1) vtgmsc - I have no idea" (post 8)
2) GaryPassamonte - "I cannot speak to the identification of the men in the stereoview". (post 18)
3) Directly - if 100 experts were polled, you'd get 25% yes, 25% no, 25% inconclusive, and 25% maybe. (post 21)
4) jpop43 - neutral and informative (post 23)
5) BobC - no definite proof either way (post 111)

NO:
1) old judge - "I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid (post 4)
2) prewarsports - 100% of antique photography experts would date it 1870-1876. (post 11)
3) benjulmag - "I would be very skeptical of the reliability of the facial recognition in this instance". (post 28)
4) rhettyeakley - almost 0% chance (post 35)
5) bgar3 - "I would be very surprised if the market place agreed with you without an astonishing amount of additional information". (post 36)
6) sphere and ash - "I am not convinced the stereoview depicts 'six learned gents', let alone the Knickerbocker Club". (post 37)
7) drcy - "it does not appear to be the Knickerbockers". (post 51)
8) oldoriole - "I just don't see it". (post 100)
9) slightlyrounded - "this is a complete stretch". (post 68)
10) D. Bergin - "Knickerbockers 6 - Definitely not. Sorry". (post 109)
11) molenick - ""I lean more to the 'I need to see more proof' side". (post 80)
12) Tao Moko - "The KBBC is way off to me".
13) ThomasL - prewarsports knows what he's talking about. (post 152)

I hope I did not misinterpret anyone's comments. If not, we have 1 YES, 5 NOT SURE, and 13 NO. When to we have a consensus?

I think there are two conversations happening in this thread with respect to the purported Knickerbockers photo. One is whether or not this is in fact a Knickerbockers photo. The fact of that matter is that we have insufficient resources to make that determination with high confidence. Most everyone in this thread should be in the "I don't know" camp. Even I am in that camp. However, while it would be extremely difficult to affirm it as a real photo of them, it could be disproven through other methods quite easily. Some of those other methods were stated by the "experts" in this thread, but their supposed expertise was quickly shown to have no teeth when their reasoning about the "gray" paper stock and arches was debunked. No one has responded to the debunking yet, but several people continue to perpetuate the nonsense for reasons I don't understand (but could speculate about).

The other question, and the one I find more interesting here, is the question of whether or not the subjects in the stereoview have similar-looking facial features to the subjects in the 1862 photo. This is where there should be no disconnect and yet somehow, we still have one. Everyone is free to agree or disagree on whether or not they think it's a Knickerbockers photo, but we should have a nearly unanimous consensus here that the subjects at least have some fairly similar, if not remarkable, facial features. This is the question that I would argue, and which I believe Steve is referring to when he talks about asking people outside of the hobby, that would have near-universal consensus among an unbiased population. It is an objective fact that most of these subjects have similar facial features, and yet somehow, we have people in here who want to pretend like white is black and up is down.

Try printing out the pairings that he posted of the players in question and sitting out front of a grocery store or some public space and ask 100 random people the simple question, "Do these men look similar or at least have similar facial features?" and the overwhelming majority will say that they do. I guarantee it. If you run this experiment in an unbiased manner and the results come back to prove me wrong, I'll send you my 52 Topps Mantle.