Knickerbocker Photo (Update)

[slightlyrounded]

Originally Posted by SteveS

slightlyrounded, you have raised an excellent point regarding the kerchief, and I appreciate it greatly, as I believe it points out a major error that I made, but also makes my identifications stronger. I thought I had read somewhere awhile back that stereoviews are reversed, like tintypes and dags. After your post, I researched that info and found out that I was incorrect. So the original orientation of my stereoview is proper. I have posted below the comparison photos with that orientation. To my eye, not only do the resemblances now look stronger, but the unique matches I pointed out earlier have not changed. But more importantly, slightlyrounded noticed something that I did not. Of the six men who are depicted in both my stereoview and the 1862 salt print, only one is wearing a kerchief in both pictures. And it's the same man -- Niebuhr. Now of course that is not going to make everybody here drop their jaw and concede the IDs. But the math experts can figure out the odds of that.

c'mon man

[drcy]

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

c'mon man

One's a salt print and the other photo shows men who all used salt.

[SteveS]

This is hysterical! I get criticized by a select few people here saying that I'm stubborn and not listening. Then when I see something constructive and listen to it and take action on it, I'm criticized for that. So unless you have something very specific that you can point out in a side-by-side comparison (as with the kerchief above), I can assure you that "I've been doing this for 20 years and you're wrong" simply doesn't cut it.

[molenick]

Here are a few specific issues I have. These may have been addressed before so apologies if this is the case.

In the pair on the left, I can honestly say that to my eye these two men do not resemble each other (and it seems to me the person on the left is older than the person on the right).

However, in the three pairs stacked on top of each other, clearly the people on the right are older than the people on the left.

(Sorry about the way the photos loaded, I can't figure out how to make the pair on the left line up with the top of the three other pairs.)

[SteveS]

Thanks, Michael! I appreciate that you took the time to do that (and on my screen, I see four comparisons that are stacked on top of each other). As for the ages, they are supposed to be older on the right. The comparison photos used are from later in these men's lives. I believe you're referring to the De Bost comparison as the one you don't see the resemblance. Originally I thought that gentleman in my stereoview was wearing glasses. He is not. His eyes are almost completely shut. But if you blow up that comparison shot and look very closely at each feature (including following the hairline), you'll see that it's the same person.

[molenick]

Okay, I guess I still see glasses and he still looks older to me. But that's just my take.

So, to be clear, the dating of the stereoview is very important because for these people to be younger than the others, it would have to be taken before the composite of 1862. And, not saying this to be negative, it would have to be one of the earliest stereoviews known or else a stereoview made from an earlier photo. Because to me you need at least a five year difference to get from the left to the right for these guys, and they would all have had to age badly (or, to be nice, let's say quickly) for even five years to explain the difference.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by molenick

In the pair on the left, I can honestly say that to my eye these two men do not resemble each other (and it seems to me the person on the left is older than the person on the right).

This is the image I find most troubling of the 6. The subject on the left also appears older to me than the subject on the right. There are however similarities with respect to a few facial features that line up well (shape of nose, where the brow meets the nose, the lines from nose to mouth, the highlight to the left of his nose just above that line, and possibly the oddly shaped receeding hairline). However, the overall dimensions of the skull don't quite line up to me as the subject on the left appears to have a slightly wider and shorter skull whereas his purported match on the right has a somewhat narrower and longer skull. But the level of detail in that 1862 photo is quite poor, particularly with respect to this guy. I don't see a reason to be anything other than agnostic on this particular pairing.

Originally Posted by molenick

However, in the three pairs stacked on top of each other, clearly the people on the right are older than the people on the left.

Yes, clearly these men are older, and not by just a few years. If these are indeed the same people, then these photos must have been taken at least 10 years apart, I would argue. If the salt print was definitively taken in 1862 and the stereoview image couldn't possibly have been taken prior to 1857 then this would be very problematic for me. However, there are a lot of 'ifs' in that statement. How solid is the 1862 date? How old could the stereoview possibly be? Is 1857 the floor? Is 1852 the floor? This is where I think the actual experts really add a lot of value to a conversation like this. Knowing the history of how these prints were made and when those techniques were invented and where, when, and how they were used. All of that knowledge is extremely useful here.

Where I roll my eyes though is when someone wants to extend that area of expertise in the history of photography to pretend that they are somehow better than someone else at determining whether or not two noses or ears have the same shape. Also, someone's track record with their claims of expertise matters as well. You can't say "there's no question whatsoever that this couldn't possibly have been made prior to the 1870s because those arches and mounting style. If you ask any expert on earth, every single one of them will say 1872-1875" or some such nonsense, only to have you proven wrong by multiple people posting images of their stereoviews dated a decade before that, and then to have a museum curator assign a date range to it that places it potentially upwards of 2 decades prior to that.

[molenick]

I think the problem is that we cannot date the stereoview. We can come up with theoretical possibilities but we can't date it.

So we are basically left with a situation where the defense calls expert witnesses that agree with their side and the prosecution calls expert witnesses that agree with their side. That doesn't mean these people are not experts, it means experts can have differences of opinion.

My problem is that even with the earliest possible dating of the stereoview as 1857 (I am disregarding the idea that it is a stereoview of a photo) some men seem to have hardly aged, some seem to have aged 10-20 years, and one looks to me like he got younger...but no one seems to have aged five years.

[SteveS]

Michael, believe me the glasses issue drove me nuts. Which is why I thought originally that he was William R. Wheaton. But after sharpening it and blowing it up, it definitely isn't glasses. I do agree that the stereoview should be older than the salt print (unless it's somehow shown that the stereoview is from an earlier negative or the date written on the back of the salt print turns out to be incorrect). But in no way would it make it one of the oldest stereoviews. I've posted some early ones here, and there is no shortage of available images on the Net. Using your five-year period, stereoviews were already being sold in New York by 1857. One final note: The Curry comparison is made with a photo of him later than the 1862 salt print, while the De Bost comparison is made using the 1859 team photo. I posted earlier De Bost's 1859 and 1862 pictures, and he looks nothing alike, and in fact, looks older in 1859 than in 1862.

Snowman, I believe I've presented WAY more than enough evidence that this stereoview can be from the 1850s. But here's what I find interesting. I don't want anyone to interpret this as my backing away from my identifications, as I most emphatically am not. But there were definitely IDs that were more difficult for me to make than others, where I had to blow up the pictures to determine what was a shadow and what was a wrinkle. I understand completely those who say that some of the comparisons look stronger than others. So let's say, just for the sake of argument, that you think Doc Adams is a very good match. OK, maybe it's Doc Adams and his Knickerbocker teammates. Or maybe it's a reunion of Doc Adams and his medical school buddies. But then let's say that you also think Duncan Curry is a very good match. As the mathematicians pointed out here earlier, that would increase the odds of this photograph containing Knickerbockers. Again, this is not a reflection of my opinion, but you don't have to see all six to say that there is a chance for this to be a Knickerbocker stereoview.