Type 1 Photos

D. Bergin · #1 09-10-2010, 10:15 AM

It's an old photo of a supplement. Not sure you can narrow it down much more then that.

If a news service takes a photo of a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card in 1925 and develops it for Press use right after............that would be considered a Type I photo of a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card (Assuming it's not an early version of a wire photo).

This Cy Young supplement. Maybe you can narrow the photo down to a certain decade or two based on the paper stock and feel. I'm not sure you can narrow down when the original negative was produced of the photo of the Supplement. It could have been anytime after the supplement itself was produced.

Is either one desirable. I guess that's for the collector to decide. There's no legitimate price guide for photos (and rightfully so).

The Type I designation is easy to slap on a dated press photo. Undated vintage photos, not so much.

The Type I-IV designations are IMO a clumsy way to try and fit every photo into a neat little box for collectors (maybe so one day they can make a price guide for photos, LOL!!).

I don't think the guys who came up with the Type designations even use them in their own descriptions, beyond to say something is a Type I. It's confusing to say the least. Especially when you consider the Type designation ladder doesn't necessarily have anything to do with value. For example a Type 3 photo is in many cases more desirable then most Type 2 Photos.............and a Type 4 Printed from a duplicate negative can (as I believe was mentioned before by Exhibitman) be pretty much imperceptible from a later printed photo from the original negative (Type II).

I use "Type I" sometimes in obvious cases. Otherwise I just say what the photo is, or what I think it is. "Vintage Photograph", "Wire Photo", "Older or Vintage Photo of an Earlier image", "Later Generation Photo of an Earlier Image", "Modern Photo or Print", etc.., etc...

Most collectors just want to know if the photo is old or of the era when the picture was taken, What kind of clarity does it have, what the subject and subject matter is, and is it a "real photo" , "press photo", "printed photo", "wire photo", "laser photo", "radio or sound photo", etc...

Just remember. Slapping the phrase "Type I" on something doesn't automatically make a photo more desirable, collectible, valuable. There are many mitigating factors involved.

End of ramble. I think I may have just confused myself.

HRBAKER · #2 09-10-2010, 01:10 PM

You don't think that a "Type 1" designation is meant to have anything to do with value? Is it not implied that a photo that was printed within "two" years of the photo being taken is somehow more valuable than one printed on down the line.

Most collectors just want to know if the photo is old or of the era when the picture was taken, What kind of clarity does it have, what the subject and subject matter is, and is it a "real photo" , "press photo", "printed photo", "wire photo", "laser photo", "radio or sound photo", etc...

I certainly agree with this.

D. Bergin · #3 09-10-2010, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HRBAKER

You don't think that a "Type 1" designation is meant to have anything to do with value? Is it not implied that a photo that was printed within "two" years of the photo being taken is somehow more valuable than one printed on down the line.

Most collectors just want to know if the photo is old or of the era when the picture was taken, What kind of clarity does it have, what the subject and subject matter is, and is it a "real photo" , "press photo", "printed photo", "wire photo", "laser photo", "radio or sound photo", etc...

I certainly agree with this.

Of course it has to do with value and trying to mainstream the photo market, just like cards.

Just something else to try and manufacture another market for slabbing purposes.

Photography is just not that easy to define.

The David Rudd (Cycleback) school of thought is just more practical then the parameters that Yee/Fogel/Oser placed on photographs for the purposes of having them graded.

Yee/Fogel/Oser DID do fantastic work in the field of identifying various Press markings and stamps. For that alone it is worth the price of their book. What is lacking is their explanation of the two year rule when dealing with undated non-press photos. It's just not possible to be that exact.

As I said before, I rarely see them using their own designations with their own material unless it's an obvious Type I dated press photo. I just picked up the December 2009 Legendary photo catalog which touts PSA and this particular photo designation system throughout, and I don't see a single reference to "Type 1", "Type 2", "Type 3", "Type 4" in any of the actual descriptions. They use the term "Original Photo" and don't get much more specific then that. Even they aren't comfortable using it.

HRBAKER · #4 09-10-2010, 02:53 PM

It's probably hard to explain the 2 year rule. If that is a criteria the graders actualy use then it follows that they would have to know when a photo was taken as well as when it was printed, on most photos a non-starter right out of the gate. To me you can't take photos and try to shoehorn them into a tight category like a baseball card even thought it is natural to want to do so as we do it with all manner of other things.

I love photos and buy them occasionally, I normally disregard any mention of Type 1/2, etc. bc to me most of the time it is an informed guess and sometimes not. If it is dated on the back that is great but you are also taking a leap of faith that it wasn't added later as well. Heck I have some photos with multiple dates, I am assuming they must have dated it each time they used or ran it?

It is an interesting niche.

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