Brooklyn CDV

[wonkaticket]

Jay, very neat item just no not my cup of tea no bidding from me. Besides its going to be like 100k right?

My comment wasn't a comment on the item just more making light of another test we can add to the mix.

I do think many good questions have been raised. If I was a serious bidder on this I would have my discussion with Troy or his bosses offline as to what I would need to feel comfortable at this point. If he gave me any more reasons to doubt the item beyond what was discussed here I would pass and not bid. I may share that here as we'll.

I can only assume from you and Corey's doubts/concerns you guys aren't keen or going to be bidding on this item right?

Cheers,

John

P.S. The psychic wont know anything either. LOL

[oldjudge]

John-I have signed up to bid but if my concerns are not satisfied I may cancel that. If I knew enough to examine the card and make an intelligent deduction about whether it is period I would. However, beyond being able to tell if the photo is albumen I bring nothing to the table. However, I and, from what I hear on the board, others have some genuine concerns about the card which have not yet been addressed. For virtually every card in the hobby, what we are asking is way over the top. However, for this card I don't believe it is. This card is merely a photo glued to a Williamson mount. Williamson mounts from is period are common. So really, to make this card all you need is an albumen photo of the team. How can you get one of those? Well you can have a modern photographer create a negative from the LOC image, fade out part of the background, print the photo using the albumen process and then attach this photo to the mount and presto, you have a CdV like this. The photo would be albumen so it would pass muster with Paul Messier, and SGC would have no reason to suspect anything(is SGC really expert on photographic images from this period?).
There is a second way to create the card. Suppose someone "comes upon" some rare period team photographs glued to scorebook or scrapbook pages. We see things like this in the NYPL and the HOF, photographs off their mounts just attached side by side to pages. Then, all one would have to do is soak the photo off the page and attach it to the aforementioned easily found Williamson mount and voila you have a card like this. Since in either case the photograph would have been attached in recent times there is a chance that a binder was used that was not available in 1865. That is why I would like to see the binder analyzed. This would not hurt the card if done by a professional.
We have all seen that forgers can do some amazing things. There are few people in the world more knowledgeable about memorabilia items from this period than Corey. There are also few people more thorough than Corey. Despite this, for a long time he was fooled by trophy balls from this era. I maintain that it was more difficult to create the phony trophy balls than it would be to create a phony CdV. I'm in no way saying this CdV is not everything it is claimed to be. I have no way of knowing and I am just trying to eliminate as much uncertainty as possible.

[wonkaticket]

Jay,

Makes sense. I understand what you are saying and your concerns.

Cheers,

John

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

John-I have signed up to bid but...

Then you are not "irrelevant".

[GaryPassamonte]

Jay- I have a couple CdVs from the 1864-66 period without revenue stamps on the reverse. Whether the stamps were removed or not, I can't tell. This Atlantics CdV may have been made after 1866, also. The fact that the image is of the 1865 team doesn't necessarily date the CdV to 1865. The presentation pieces using this image were obviously made 1870 or later as referenced on the mount. We all know that dating these early pieces is an inexact science.

[barrysloate]

If Williamson reissued the image after 1866, it would help explain the photo's poor resolution. A reissue is not impossible, as the Atlantics were very popular in their day. The photo quality clearly isn't as rich or clear as one would hope, so our speculation and concerns center around that issue.

And a fair market value for this item is 30-40K. Anything above that is the hype factor.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

If Williamson reissued the image after 1866, it would help explain the photo's poor resolution. A reissue is not impossible, as the Atlantics were very popular in their day. The photo quality clearly isn't as rich or clear as one would hope, so our speculation and concerns center around that issue.

And a fair market value for this item is 30-40K. Anything above that is the hype factor.

If the reissue was made from the original negative, why would the resolution be poorer?

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

If the reissue was made from the original negative, why would the resolution be poorer?

Corey- I'm assuming if the same negative keeps getting used, the photograph will lose some clarity. That may not be correct, that is my assumption.

We've noted that the photo resolution on the Cincinnati Peck and Snyders with a red mount are not as strong as those on the black mounts, and have surmised that the red mounts were a later issue. I'm using the same principle with the Atlantics CdV.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by GaryPassamonte

Jay- I have a couple CdVs from the 1864-66 period without revenue stamps on the reverse. Whether the stamps were removed or not, I can't tell. This Atlantics CdV may have been made after 1866, also. The fact that the image is of the 1865 team doesn't necessarily date the CdV to 1865. The presentation pieces using this image were obviously made 1870 or later as referenced on the mount. We all know that dating these early pieces is an inexact science.

The presentation pieces to my knowledge were not made from this image. They were made from the same sitting, but a different shoot. The one in the NBL was obviously made post-1865, as you point out. The other, the salt print, was almost certainly made in 1865.

[GaryPassamonte]

Corey- We can never be certain of the date of issue. There is a reasonable chance many pieces were made later than the date the photograph was taken.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by GaryPassamonte

Corey- We can never be certain of the date of issue. There is a reasonable chance many pieces were made later than the date the photograph was taken.

Does anybody know if the NBL mammoth plate is an albumen print or a salt print?

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

Why would the studio want to intentionally degrade the quality of the image?

If it was not intentional, then we're left with it being some sort of test piece [edited to add: or a photo of a photo]. Perhaps someone at the studio was practicing his vignette skills and this print was the result. Still playing around, he glued it to an existing mount. He was, of course, surprised that his measurements were incorrect when he cut the photo, so he gave up and didn't create any more. Googling 'Williamson Brooklyn cdv', I have been unable to find any examples where the image does not fit the mount, which goes along with the possibility that it was a test piece.

Since 'vignettes' were a Williamson specialty, it should not be too difficult to find an example somewhere...

...Hey, I found one! You can see how Williamson 'faded out' the photograph at the top, being careful to preserve the integrity (and definition) of the little girl's image:



Here's another (the Williamson markings are only on the reverse) Interestingly, despite all the 'white space' in the image, Williamson still created an albumen that fit the mount. This cdv was created by taking a photograph of a drawing. Certainly, with the Brooklyn Atlantics cdv, Williamson's studio could have taken a photograph of a photograph, which would account for loss of definition.