Wire Photos

[Archive]

Posted By: David

Can anyone give me any information on the different types of wire photos that are out there? Specifically, I'm looking for information on wire photos that would be from the 40's-60's.

Thanks!

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimmy

Buy the book Smithsonian Baseball, it would talk sometime to explain to you, but I would start there

Jimmy

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimmy

you could also look at Leland's website and search for old photos

Jimmy

[Archive]

Posted By: David

Thanks for the reply. I'm not really looking to purchase a book on wire photos. I'm not that invested in what I have. I should have been more specific. I bought about 40 wire photos and a fair number of them don't look like wire photos I've seen before. These are on standard 'notebook size' paper, however the paper 'stock' is much heavier (probably close to the stock of a photograph, though these are not photographs). The photos do not have any information on them beyond the description of the photo. Ie. there is no newspaper stamp on them.

I can post a scan, though I'm not sure a scan will show up looking much different from a standard wire photo.

Thanks

[Archive]

Posted By: D. Bergin

If you posted a scan of front/back of one I'm sure somebody here could give you some idea of what you have.

[Archive]

Posted By: David

The backs are blank. I tried to leave the edges visible for reference.

[Archive]

Posted By: davidcycleback

It's an Associated Press wirephoto from 1948. Photos with the caption like that in the image are wirephotos, and the date of the caption is the date of the photo. The label even says its an AP wirephoto-- though that's not needed to identify it as a wirephoto. If you see 'telephoto' on the photo, that means the same thing as a wirephoto (wire = telephone wire).

[Archive]

Posted By: David

Thanks for the information. I was thinking maybe these were reproduced somehow from an original or something like that.

David

[Archive]

Posted By: davidcycleback

The wirephoto process involved putting a photograph into a wirephoto machine, which made an image copy of the photo and sent this image sent via telephone wire to another wirephoto machine far away where the image was developed onto photopaper into a second paper photograph-- a copy of the first. The received copy photograph is what a wirephoto is. Many people use 'wirephoto' as a generic term to describe any and all photos made by AP or UPI or other news services, but wirephotos are only the ones made via the just described wirephoto process.

So you are correct that your wirephotos were reproduced from original AP photos, as that's how wirephotos were made.

[Archive]

Posted By: David

Thanks, that's the information I was after.

[Archive]

Posted By: davidcycleback

As noted, your wirephoto has the caption in the image. If you found the original photo, it would have the physical paper caption pasted on top of the image. As the paper caption strip was put on the original photo just before the wirephoto process, the date in the wirephoto caption is the date of the photo. Thus, wirephotos are easy to date.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jimmy

photos of the items always helps us, glad you got some information form the board members above

Jimmy