International News Photos

thecatspajamas · #1 02-13-2012, 12:08 PM

Scott, is it just on my end, or was there a problem with the image upload on your post? I'm just getting the white box with a red x.

Runscott · #2 02-13-2012, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Scott, is it just on my end, or was there a problem with the image upload on your post? I'm just getting the white box with a red x.

Weird - I'm getting the same thing, but when I go directly to the server I can see it fine

Try this:

thecatspajamas · #3 02-13-2012, 01:55 PM

Scott, second posting of the pic shows up fine, for me at least.

I'm not as familiar with Culver's stamping styles, and they are unfortunately not covered in Yee/Fogel's book, but it looks to me like there are at least 3 distinct stampings on the back of your photo (possibly four, depending on what is underneath the 2-strip masking label). It looks to me like, of the stampings visible, the Culver Pictures, Inc. stamping with the marked-out address was applied first, along with the "This picture is loaned for..." text block underneath (possibly the two were on the same stamp block, though I can't quite tell if the alignment is there by eyeballing the scan). At some point, Culver moved or changed addresses, and the stamping with phone number at the bottom was added. Research into the history of Culver (which I have not done) would help to give a date range to both of those stamps, even absent from other dated examples to compare to. Finally, the "DEACCESSIONED" stamping at the top was applied in 1992. Judging by the blanks left in the stamp to be filled in by hand, that stamp was likely used over a number of years for whenever photos were removed or sold from the archive, and in this case could be definitively dated to February of 1992. All stamping aside, the original cabinet card is commonly known as an 1895 Newsboy Cabinet (ACC #N566) which was issued in the mid-1890's as evidenced by the logo and number on the front of the card/photo (and now that I think about it, probably has advertising on the back underneath the masking label rather than another Culver stamp). It would have been picked up by Culver at some time later and added to their archive of images as a nice example of an early Ward photo. This practice too was not uncommon, though their claiming of rights for the photo to be used in advertising is pretty bold considering the source of the image, and probably would not have been enforceable.

So like with any stamped news photo, you have to proceed backwards through the various stampings and markings to get to the earliest one (in this case, not the stamping of the news agency, but the original Newsboy commercial markings on the cabinet card itself) to date when the photo (print) was produced. Clearly, the 1992 date, being the most recent marking on the photo, is not the date the photo (print) was produced (as you said yourself). Even disregarding the original Newsboy markings though, I don't think this is a case of a photo that was sitting in Culver's archives unstamped for 100 years, only to be pulled out and stamped in 1992 when it was removed from the archive. If you further researched the other Culver stampings, I believe you would find that the earlier stamp was applied much much earlier than 1992, most likely when Culver added the photo to their archives.

drc · #4 02-13-2012, 02:14 PM

Scott, just quit using in your posts the f-word and "The South will rise again", and you will be okay.

Scott was suspicious of me when he found out I was a Northerner until he learned all my relatives immigrated to the US after the Civil War.

Runscott · #5 02-13-2012, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Scott, second posting of the pic shows up fine, for me at least.

I'm not as familiar with Culver's stamping styles, and they are unfortunately not covered in Yee/Fogel's book, but it looks to me like there are at least 3 distinct stampings on the back of your photo (possibly four, depending on what is underneath the 2-strip masking label). It looks to me like, of the stampings visible, the Culver Pictures, Inc. stamping with the marked-out address was applied first, along with the "This picture is loaned for..." text block underneath (possibly the two were on the same stamp block, though I can't quite tell if the alignment is there by eyeballing the scan). At some point, Culver moved or changed addresses, and the stamping with phone number at the bottom was added. Research into the history of Culver (which I have not done) would help to give a date range to both of those stamps, even absent from other dated examples to compare to. Finally, the "DEACCESSIONED" stamping at the top was applied in 1992. Judging by the blanks left in the stamp to be filled in by hand, that stamp was likely used over a number of years for whenever photos were removed or sold from the archive, and in this case could be definitively dated to February of 1992. All stamping aside, the original cabinet card is commonly known as an 1895 Newsboy Cabinet (ACC #N566) which was issued in the mid-1890's as evidenced by the logo and number on the front of the card/photo (and now that I think about it, probably has advertising on the back underneath the masking label rather than another Culver stamp). It would have been picked up by Culver at some time later and added to their archive of images as a nice example of an early Ward photo. This practice too was not uncommon, though their claiming of rights for the photo to be used in advertising is pretty bold considering the source of the image, and probably would not have been enforceable.

So like with any stamped news photo, you have to proceed backwards through the various stampings and markings to get to the earliest one (in this case, not the stamping of the news agency, but the original Newsboy commercial markings on the cabinet card itself) to date when the photo (print) was produced. Clearly, the 1992 date, being the most recent marking on the photo, is not the date the photo (print) was produced (as you said yourself). Even disregarding the original Newsboy markings though, I don't think this is a case of a photo that was sitting in Culver's archives unstamped for 100 years, only to be pulled out and stamped in 1992 when it was removed from the archive. If you further researched the other Culver stampings, I believe you would find that the earlier stamp was applied much much earlier than 1992, most likely when Culver added the photo to their archives.

Yes, of course. I did go through all that back when I owned it - you probably can't see it because it's scribbled over, but I was able to come up with an earlier date based on the phone number that no longer is visible. It was just an interesting example, so thought I'd share. Your post was great and I certainly wasn't contradicting anything you said - trust me, the board crocodiles would have been all over me by now. I'm bleeding in the water at this point and probably shouldn't be sharing ideas at all.

thecatspajamas · #6 02-13-2012, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runscott

Yes, of course. I did go through all that back when I owned it - you probably can't see it because it's scribbled over, but I was able to come up with an earlier date based on the phone number that no longer is visible. It was just an interesting example, so thought I'd share. Your post was great and I certainly wasn't contradicting anything you said - trust me, the board crocodiles would have been all over me by now. I'm bleeding in the water at this point and probably shouldn't be sharing ideas at all.

Scott, I didn't mean to be poo-pooing your example or implying that you didn't know what you have. I just wanted to make sure it was clear for other readers of these posts with regards to the various stampings and how they are used to date a photo, as it seems there is a lot of misconception out there. I didn't mean it to sound like I was taking offense or being defensive.

And I am glad that you showed the example, as it reminded me that I do need to do more research on Culver (they seem to come up regularly in these photo threads). Unfortunately, that's one news service that I haven't yet found any "giants' shoulders" to stand on in terms of reference material

I would be glad to hear anything you may have found in your own diggings!

Runscott · #7 02-13-2012, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

And I am glad that you showed the example, as it reminded me that I do need to do more research on Culver (they seem to come up regularly in these photo threads). Unfortunately, that's one news service that I haven't yet found any "giants' shoulders" to stand on in terms of reference material

I would be glad to hear anything you may have found in your own diggings!

This is the only Culver that ever stood out for me - most that I owned were fairly run of the mill. This one was interesting because they used a cabinet photo to distribute, and because it had two addresses on it (my mistake - not a phone number scribbled out), and the two pieces of paper had been glued over something (I didn't want to remove them to look). At one point I had determined the date that they moved from the first (top) address, so I knew the card had been in their files for at least 'x' number of years.

To me, that was interesting - obviously the piece wasn't perceived as valuable. I also found it curious that they had never stamped a date anywhere on the photo - yes, they could date it based on the fact that it was a Newsboy cabinet, but they were distributing it without that date indicated, leaving it up to the publisher to indicate whatever date they wanted in their publication. I guess it's really not that important - I just found the whole piece interesting.

I enjoyed your Ruth assessment. It's always tempting to want such a photo to be older than it likely is, but as you state - almost certainly a reprint from the 1940's.

Runscott · #8 02-15-2012, 11:42 AM

Digging through my photos for a better Culver example, I came across this Willie Hoppe stamped 1940. Has a similar news service stamp, but missing the 'King Features Synd' line. Also found this 1909-stamped Culver of Hoppe.

drc · #9 02-13-2012, 01:20 PM

I've noticed a few other image problems on Net54 lately, so it isn't just your photo Scott

Runscott · #10 02-13-2012, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drc

I've noticed a few other image problems on Net54 lately, so it isn't just your photo Scott

David, are you saying I have an 'image issue'?

And you, one of my few friends on the board

edited to add: fixed it - it was indeed my mistake, not a Net54 problem.

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