PSA photo authentication - a suggestion

[drcy]

Agreed. Photos and trading cards are different things.

Photos commonly come with photographer's or newspaper's editors notes on back, date stamps, paper captions, cropping marks, paper caption remnants. That's part of what they are. Just as game used jerseys come with grass stains and game used bats come with ball and clete marks and pine tar residue. A grass stain on your baseball card is undesirable, but it's desirable on game used jersey. If someone is selling a 'game used' jersey in 'Gem Mint form the factor condition,' you will question if it is authentic. Baseball cards and jerseys are different things and different genres, and a 1910 UP photo of Ty Cobb is not not a 1991 Donruss Sammy Sosa.

You clearly wouldn't expect Beckett or PSA to grade baseballs using the same exact criterion as they use to grade baseball cards. How do you grade the corners of a baseball when a baseball has no corners? There's not such thing as a baseball with corner dings or trimmed edges.

It's known as comparing apples to oranges. Or, in the case of baseball cards and game used jerseys, apples to aardvarks. What lowers the value on a baseball card (pine tar stains), raises the value on a games used bat. What lower's the technical grade on a baseball card (photographer's notes and date stamps on back), raises the value of a photograph.

This all helps explains why PSA/DNA judges trading cards, game used bats, coins and photos using different rules.

[Frozen in Time]

I prefer the front of photos to be clean such that the print more accurately represents the original negative taken by the photographer. Extensive editorial masking simply alters the end product of what the photographer was attempting to accomplish in the first place. Henry and many other collectors that I've talked with share exactly the same view.

Nonetheless, there are probably just as many collectors on the other side of the coin that welcome all editorial markings as evidence of publication, etc. In most cases this will not effect the price, although with identical high profile photos, the one that has less or little of the editorial work usually sells for more. This is also one of the major reasons that John Roger's Archives clean the fronts of virtually all their photos.

For me , the ideal photo (aside from content, clarity, etc.) is one with a clean front and a back loaded with as much info as possible - date, photographer, news agency stamps, etc.

I don't know if it would even be possible to follow the exact history of editorial alterations, trimming, etc for many photos but I can understand why some would like to know. For me, I simply want to be certain of the Type classification and original date and source of the photo. All other aspects of its history are secondary in my opinion.

Craig

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Frozen in Time

For me , the ideal photo (aside from content, clarity, etc.) is one with a clean front and a back loaded with as much info as possible - date, photographer, news agency stamps, etc.

Craig, I normally agree completely with what you said above.

But here's a photo I recently received, that shows all sorts of editorial marks, and I think it's kind of cool. I would like to have an un-marked copy as well, but I wouldn't dream of removing the marks from this one:

[Frozen in Time]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Craig, I normally agree completely with what you said above.

But here's a photo I recently received, that shows all sorts of editorial marks, and I think it's kind of cool. I would like to have an un-marked copy as well, but I wouldn't dream of removing the marks from this one:

Yeah Scott, I agree with you about this photo and actually some I have of Mantle where the editorial "shading" is more focused an actually enhances the image in a pleasing and positive fashion.

Craig

[Runscott]

PS - that was Jackie Robinson stealing home, in July of 1947. Plan to frame it with a baseball card and autograph.

[glchen]

Scott,

The thing is most photos authenticated by PSA are not slabbed. PSA only slabs photos that are close to 8x10 in size. If the photos are smaller or larger than this size, they are not slabbed. You just the exact same photo you sent in, but with a sticker on the back matching it to the LOA. So, just ballparking it, I would say that less than 10% of photos from PSA are slabbed, so most photos are never hidden in plastic.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by glchen

Scott,

The thing is most photos authenticated by PSA are not slabbed. PSA only slabs photos that are close to 8x10 in size. If the photos are smaller or larger than this size, they are not slabbed. You just the exact same photo you sent in, but with a sticker on the back matching it to the LOA. So, just ballparking it, I would say that less than 10% of photos from PSA are slabbed, so most photos are never hidden in plastic.

Thanks, Gary. I've owned a bunch of the slabbed ones, but never one of the ones you describe that has a sticker.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by drcy

Agreed. Photos and trading cards are different things.

Correct, which is why, if you are going to disguise a photo as a card by hiding it in a slab with a PSA designation, you need to point out things that are common with photos, that differentiate them from cards, or that might not be as appropriate to describe for a card. Again, I'm not a slab collector, so this is all theory - you might be right that it would be cost-prohibitive, much as accurately identifying a legitimate autograph has proven to be cost-prohibitive. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.