Knickerbocker Photo

[SteveS]

Hi everybody! This is my first post here. I have been collecting for a long time. In 1979, at the age of 14, I was listed in "The Sports Collectors Bible" as one of the "World's Leading Hobbyists." I would like to get your opinion on this stereoview photograph I purchased on eBay. It was listed as just "Six Learned Gents," but I noticed immediately a great resemblance to members of the Knickerbockers, baseball's "first team." I have shown it to several baseball historians and the majority feel that it may very well be them (please note that John Thorn and Mark Fimoff have stated that they do not feel it's them; I'm not sure if that's because they don't feel there's a resemblance or the lack of provenance, but I certainly don't wish to bother them again with it if they are on this forum).

From my research, I believe that the photograph was taken in the 1840s, then used to make the stereoview in the 1850s. The players are clockwise from upper-left: Fraley C. Niebuhr, Charles H. Birney, Walter T. Avery, Doc Adams, William R. Wheaton, and Edward Anthony. I also include side-by-side comparisons with the known photos of those men (all but two -- Anthony and Wheaton -- from the 1862 Knickerbocker "Reunion" composite photo). I would appreciate greatly your opinion as to whether you see the resemblances and whether this could be a photograph of the Knickerbockers. I am not a mathematician, but it just seems as though the odds would be astronomical of six people looking that much alike and not being them (in fact I have run it through two different facial-match programs and all six come up as matches at levels of 80%-93%). I know how very knowledgeable you are on this forum, and I look forward to hearing what you think.

Steve Sussman