Circa 1846 Daguerreotype – Alexander Joy Cartwright debate

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by bmarlowe1

>>But with respect I say that while you clearly know more than the average person, your knowledge cannot compare to an expert such as Mr. Richards.

That’s why I obtained the services of Stephen Mancusi. That said, I think my response to Mr. Richards holds up very well.

>>As to your point in an earlier post of my failure "to produce known photos of the same early ballplayers that exhibit multiple feature differences as do Cartwright and subject C", that was not my role. That was Jerry Richard's role..

I honestly never considered that this would require an expert. It doesn’t seem very difficult to me to point out such differences if they exist. I can tell you that I cannot easily find such examples – as explained I have certainly tried and I can’t find any. That tells me that such a case would be at least extremely uncommon. This speaks to the likelihood of C being AJC. Of course the question is out there on this forum and through the newsletter. Let’s see what others may come up with. (see last paragraph p. 29)

When we started this project, the manner we decided to go about it was to hire an expert and let him opine. As we began discussing this issue, we decided the best route to take was for each of us to hire his own expert and let them do the analysis. That was what we did. In the end we are simply going to have to agree to disagree. I believe Jerry Richards has ripped to threads not only Mr. Mancusi's report, but also his mode of analysis as well as the appropriateness of using an artist to do a photographic comparison. Who Mr. Mancusi works for is irrelevant, as shown by the completely botched iris analysis. And I don't need to hear that the reason for that was because he wasn't given access to the original. Jerry Richards didn't want the original. He wanted a higher resolution reproduction to blow up. If he couldn't get it, he told me anything he would say about the irises would be so fraught with error to be close to worthless. Yet to Mr. Mancusi, before you allowed the change in the wording of the report, that was the most important factor he discussed.

I have spent countless hours over the last year on this project. I've also expended considerable expense. I've done what we set out to do, and now I'm being told that I should be the one to look for images to establish my points. That is not my expertise. I have no doubt that had Jerry expended time on it he would have had a field day doing it. It is not my intention to keep going back and forth. One would think if you were that satisfied with Mr. Mancusi's report settling the matter, you wouldn't feel the need to now act the photo ID expert. If you want to that that is your business. But for my state of mind, which to me is all that matters inasmuch as I own the item and the only person I want to satisfy is myself that I am not fooling myself into thinking something is what it is not, I am satisfied. As much as I respect you Mark, I believe Jerry has considerably more expertise and credibility than you do on this matter, and I choose to defer to his assessment.