PSA photo authentication - a suggestion

[drcy]

I've never even attempted to remove marks from the front of a news photo, because a) When I owned them (I don't have any anymore) I didn't even know it could be done and b) I'm not a handy person and would fear I'd ruin the photo.

Though the general rule for all areas of memorabilia and art, restoration is okay if you disclose it at sale. In California, you are legally required to disclose any and all restoration or alteration to an artwork you're selling. Duly note the California law isn't a felony or anything. You wouldn't go to jail if you didn't realize the $1,000 painting you sold had been revarnished ten years before you bought it. It's just that non-desclosure is considered deceptive and would be considered legal reason for the buyer to return it for refund within a reasonable period of time. I think the law says the return period is one year. If the deception was intentional and significantly effected the sale price, you could possibly get an additional fine, something akin to a parking ticket. Now, on the other hand, if you sold $20 million of artwork and lied about every piece you sold, then you could get in big trouble.

If you want to avoid the above return rules and issues, simply mention that ink or whatever was removed from a photo in your sales or auction description. I don't know that the disclosure will even lower the sales price. If anything, it could raise it because the bidders see that you're an honest seller and they're willing to bid more with sellers they trust. The California law doesn't say there's anything wrong, bad or illegal with alteration or restoration, just that it has to be disclosed at sale.

And, as was the point of Scott's original post in this lengthy thread, what he thought was removal of ink to the photo was apparently not disclosed at auction. He didn't say whether he thought ink removal was good or bad, he just observed that, if there was ink removal on the photo, it wasn't mentioned.

[Runscott]

I didn't know crop marks could be removed, until a forum member told me about it. Now I find that some of the white or grey marks can be removed, some can't. Same for thin black ink lines that you would think could not be removed. The few times I tried it, results were mixed, so in general I don't attempt it, but I've seen beautiful photos where the entire 'painted out' gray background had been wiped off.

I think the original example I posted had thin black lines that could not be removed completely.

[Frozen in Time]

One thing I have noticed over the years is that the overall condition and degree of editorial escapades appearing on a photo sometimes depends importantly on the original source of the photo.

For example, over the past 30 years or so, I have found with my major focus (which, as most of you know, is Mantle) that when I have bought collections from individual sports writers, photographers and players more often then not the condition of the photos (as well as the lack of editorial work on the front) and various types of stamping on the back is far better than those obtained from the archives of newspapers, news agencies, publishing houses, magazines, etc. This makes sense, as many of these individual photos from the collections of sports writers, players and to some extent photographers were not used in publication, at least not as frequently as those in the news/publishing archives. Thus , less handling, wear and tear and editorial incursions.

This was one reason why early in the game, I did a lot of research locating such sources - and many were remarkably productive.

Craig

[prewarsports]

There is a pretty direct correlation between the popularity of the subject and condition of press photos in general. In the NEA archive I was able to dig through, there were thousands of high grade images from pre 1930 but they are almost always guys that the paper might have received in the mail as part of a group of images and then never used the photo. The big names got used for stories and then reused over and over again being taken in and out of folders for 100 years. The Grover Lowdermilks of the World just sat there like the unpopular toys from "Toy Story" all alone and remained in amazing condition.

Some archives are just beat to hell and it has to do more with storage than anything. If the paper used open folders than they are almost always in bad shape, but if they used self enclosing envelopes for their subjects than aside from some corner bumping (sliding the photos in and out) they can still be found in immaculate condition!

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by prewarsports

There is a pretty direct correlation between the popularity of the subject and condition of press photos in general. In the NEA archive I was able to dig through, there were thousands of high grade images from pre 1930 but they are almost always guys that the paper might have received in the mail as part of a group of images and then never used the photo. The big names got used for stories and then reused over and over again being taken in and out of folders for 100 years. The Grover Lowdermilks of the World just sat there like the unpopular toys from "Toy Story" all alone and remained in amazing condition.

Some archives are just beat to hell and it has to do more with storage than anything. If the paper used open folders than they are almost always in bad shape, but if they used self enclosing envelopes for their subjects than aside from some corner bumping (sliding the photos in and out) they can still be found in immaculate condition!

Thanks for that explanation, Rhys. When I went through my 1970's baseball cards about ten years ago, I found a 1971 Nolan Ryan in near-mint condition, for exactly the reasons you describe. I was elated that I didn't know who Nolan Ryan was back then.

[thecatspajamas]

This also correlates to what Craig was saying about photos coming from players' personal collections being in better condition. Often those were placed in albums, file cabinets, trunks, or "archived" in some other way and sat untouched for decades. They were treated as keepsakes, not tools of the trade. You tend to expect that tools are going to show more wear than keepsakes

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

This also correlates to what Craig was saying about photos coming from players' personal collections being in better condition. Often those were placed in albums, file cabinets, trunks, or "archived" in some other way and sat untouched for decades. They were treated as keepsakes, not tools of the trade. You tend to expect that tools are going to show more wear than keepsakes

True, Lance, but some of the 'tools' are incredible items, just because of their lifetime of press experience:

[Frozen in Time]

Originally Posted by prewarsports

There is a pretty direct correlation between the popularity of the subject and condition of press photos in general. In the NEA archive I was able to dig through, there were thousands of high grade images from pre 1930 but they are almost always guys that the paper might have received in the mail as part of a group of images and then never used the photo. The big names got used for stories and then reused over and over again being taken in and out of folders for 100 years. The Grover Lowdermilks of the World just sat there like the unpopular toys from "Toy Story" all alone and remained in amazing condition.

Some archives are just beat to hell and it has to do more with storage than anything. If the paper used open folders than they are almost always in bad shape, but if they used self enclosing envelopes for their subjects than aside from some corner bumping (sliding the photos in and out) they can still be found in immaculate condition!

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

This also correlates to what Craig was saying about photos coming from players' personal collections being in better condition. Often those were placed in albums, file cabinets, trunks, or "archived" in some other way and sat untouched for decades. They were treated as keepsakes, not tools of the trade. You tend to expect that tools are going to show more wear than keepsakes

Yes , that was exactly my point. In the case of one sportswriter, I bought all the Mantle photos in his archive directly from his family. These dated from 1951 to 1957 (the sportswriter retired in 1958).

When I went to the house of the sportswriter's daughter, she showed me his entire archive - a series of 5 old filing cabinets + some other stuff in about 20 large boxes. She opened one drawer of one filing cabinet to show me where the Mantle photos were - she said she had looked at all the contents of the filing cabinets and boxes and these were all the Mantle photos she could find. They were in a large, fading, reddish color "envelope" that was in between several other similar envelopes, all oriented with their long axis horizontal. She said these were all original to her father and that all the writing was her father's.

Within the large reddish envelope there were 2 blue folders each with mickey mantle-yankees written on the outside,and one whitish folder with just what looks like "1/2" written on the outside. The "1/2" folder had mostly wire photos cut down to show just Mantle, I believe this is what is now called a vertical file. The 2 other folders had 5X7, 6X8, 7X9 and 8X10 photos of the Mick - mostly Type I's. The fronts of virtually all of these were clean, almost pristine, the backs of most had a news agency or photographer's stamp and sometimes a date stamp. Interestingly, almost all had the paper caption ripped off (all that remained was a small brown piece ) and in the sportswriter's handwriting a summary and date of the photo info.

So, although I'm not sure what the exact function of these photos was for this sportswriter, I can say that the overwhelming majority of the photos that I got from this one (and, as I mentioned in my earlier e-mail, from other sportswriters, photographers and estates of players) have always been in much better shape than those I've bought that originated from newspaper or news agency archives.

Craig