Reversed image photos

[prewarsports]

The editors did not print the photos so a photographers error is highly unlikely. These photographs would have been developed by the photographer themselves (or a developer that worked on behalf of all the photographers at specific agency). You would order prints from the service and could specify whether you wanted them reversed or not as some papers were heavier into engraving. Many times the service or the receiving paper would make note that a photo was "Reversed" and sometimes there were even stamps that would say "Reversed for Engraving" on them. If it is a press photo from an agency with a stamp on the back and it is reversed, it was absolutely intended to be reversed. I get why sometimes people don't like them (if it looks like Babe Ruth is coming home from First base for example after a Home Run) but they are really interesting pieces of photographic history.

These were big in the late 1910's through the 1920's and were obsolete with newer technology that made printing photographs by newspapers easier by the 1930's (and with the wider use of Wire Photo Technology).