What do you photo guys make of this?

[prewarsports]

You are correct. Aside from some high end double-weight studio photographs, the material used to create early press photography was very brittle with a thin piece of paper and heavy gelatin. Because these photos were flimsy and fragile, smaller sizes were more conducive (also more cost effective). This is why Underwood & Underwood (the only company at the time to make really large images) used such thick paper to develop their photographs. Although not a hard rule, earlier press photos are generally much smaller.

Rhys