Charles Conlon Fakes, Baseball Magazine Stickers & A Brief Tutorial

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by Forever Young

Well, first off.. the Type system says APPROX 2 years. This was done so a 1919 or 1920 restrike of a rookie babe Ruth or a 1954 mantle vs 1951 rookie or not equals. The two year window was created for this reason. HOWEVER... GEO. BURKE is a perfect example of approx two years is flexible. If A BURKE photo was made in the30s with a 30s stamp.. it will be deemed a type 1 as it was made off orig neg and at the approx time and hard to distinguish within 2 years(burke used same paper in house for example/why hard)..
Many things can be determined by the paper other than stamps through fluorescents in paper and exemplars( to name a couple).
The “apprx” 2 years things seems to be a hang up to some. It isn’t for me. Probably because I know that it is not used to willy nilly authenticate. PSA actually goes out of their way to be as exact as possible in photo authentication. They actually go a little too extreme sometimes if you ask me. i.e. not authenticating bains on mounts or real photos if it has a fake stamp. They will actually say they don’t know if they do not know. I understand why they do these things though. I believe the photo authentication division has learned from authenticating mistakes(other genres) of the past.

Originally Posted by Forever Young

If they were the exact same.. they would have probably been printed at the same time

Ben,
I understand what you're saying here and I don't disagree with your logic. My concern is that by having this ambiguity of interpretation, it creates confusion and the possibility of the appearance of uneven application of the rules. By no means am I saying that they are playing favorites, but the more strict the rules are, the more even it appears.

Your explanation of the Burke photos is exactly the type of example that creates confusion. Nowhere in their book or on PSA's website do they say that all Burkes with a 30's stamp are type 1. Understand that I don't think this decision is unreasonable, but being that this sort of information is published nowhere, how are photo collectors or sellers supposed to know this?

By having this sort of unknown rule, what you're saying to people that it's not OK to call a 1919 original negative re-strike of 1915 Ruth a type 1, because it's over 2yrs, but it is OK to call an original negative restrike of a Burke image a type 1, even if if could've been produced 6 or 7yrs later. Can you see how this can create confusion?

If I understand it correctly, the paper's fluorescence and many other physical characteristics aren't likely to be significantly different from the 20s through the end of the 30's. This is why I asked the question.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

By having this sort of unknown rule, what you're saying to people that it's not OK to call a 1919 original negative re-strike of 1915 Ruth a type 1, because it's over 2yrs, but it is OK to call an original negative restrike of a Burke image a type 1, even if if could've been produced 6 or 7yrs later. Can you see how this can create confusion?

If I understand it correctly, the paper's fluorescence and many other physical characteristics aren't likely to be significantly different from the 20s through the end of the 30's. This is why I asked the question.

Mark, Burkes are special only in the sense that there is a larger year range of prints where you can't tell what part of the range they were printed in. If there was no type system, as a photo collector you would treat all such prints the same. Same for the Ruth photos - how are you going to know that the 1919 print is actually a 1919 print, and not a 1915? In essence, both examples are treated the same - it's just that with Burkes it is more likely that you will call something 'Type I' when it was actually printed outside the 2-year range.

I don't think I have ever actually written 'in essence'.

[Runscott]

Also, I realize you weren't talking to me, but I figured Ben would appreciate a non-PSA guy saying something positive.