Any Idea of Why This Went So Cheaply?

[bmarlowe1]

Fred:"I'm going to guess that the ears and nose may not look the same because of the different angles from which the photos were taken. '

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Really Fred that is nonsense - take a photo of your ear, the turn your head about 5 degrees and take another photo of your ear - then tell me how different they look.

Now - gather all the really verified Radbourne photos - they are all at at least somewhat different angles - yet his ears always compare very well. Only in this photo does his left ear look entirely different.

I guess this requires the application of some common sense as well as some inate ability to understand that 3-D objects don't magically morph into something else when they are turned a few degrees (the difference in angles of the 2 photos is quite small). Also, if you take the time to carefully study a few thousand photos of faces, you may learn to understand what happens to ears/noses/etc. when they are turned more than a few degrees.

In the 1880's you can be certain that there were very many Americans who looked similar to Radbourne.

I would add that in the unlikely event that Halper got this from the Radbourne family, the "provenance" would be simply a falsehood passed down thru the generations - a common occurence. Or maybe they wrote "Radbourn" on the photo so they wouldn't forget their last name.