Type 1 Photos

[D. Bergin]

It's an old photo of a supplement. Not sure you can narrow it down much more then that.

If a news service takes a photo of a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card in 1925 and develops it for Press use right after............that would be considered a Type I photo of a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card (Assuming it's not an early version of a wire photo).

This Cy Young supplement. Maybe you can narrow the photo down to a certain decade or two based on the paper stock and feel. I'm not sure you can narrow down when the original negative was produced of the photo of the Supplement. It could have been anytime after the supplement itself was produced.

Is either one desirable. I guess that's for the collector to decide. There's no legitimate price guide for photos (and rightfully so).

The Type I designation is easy to slap on a dated press photo. Undated vintage photos, not so much.

The Type I-IV designations are IMO a clumsy way to try and fit every photo into a neat little box for collectors (maybe so one day they can make a price guide for photos, LOL!!).

I don't think the guys who came up with the Type designations even use them in their own descriptions, beyond to say something is a Type I. It's confusing to say the least. Especially when you consider the Type designation ladder doesn't necessarily have anything to do with value. For example a Type 3 photo is in many cases more desirable then most Type 2 Photos.............and a Type 4 Printed from a duplicate negative can (as I believe was mentioned before by Exhibitman) be pretty much imperceptible from a later printed photo from the original negative (Type II).

I use "Type I" sometimes in obvious cases. Otherwise I just say what the photo is, or what I think it is. "Vintage Photograph", "Wire Photo", "Older or Vintage Photo of an Earlier image", "Later Generation Photo of an Earlier Image", "Modern Photo or Print", etc.., etc...

Most collectors just want to know if the photo is old or of the era when the picture was taken, What kind of clarity does it have, what the subject and subject matter is, and is it a "real photo" , "press photo", "printed photo", "wire photo", "laser photo", "radio or sound photo", etc...

Just remember. Slapping the phrase "Type I" on something doesn't automatically make a photo more desirable, collectible, valuable. There are many mitigating factors involved.

End of ramble. I think I may have just confused myself.