What would be the most valuable original baseball photo (if it existed)?

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by esd10

probably the photo of the t206 eddie plank or the original photo used for the 1869 peck & snyder cincinnati redstockings

The 1869 P & S already is an original photo...however somewhere in the literature I read that mammoth plates of these Peck and Snyders were made, though to my knowledge none have survived.

There is a photo in the Spalding Collection at the New York Public Library which I feel would be the most valuable in the hobby. It's a mammoth plate salt print of the 1860 Brooklyn Excelsiors featuring James Creighton. If that one were for sale I think a quarter of a million dollars would not be unreasonable.

[drc]

My motto is I can tell you what a photo is worth, but not what an insane rich person would pay for it.

[Forever Young]

Originally Posted by drc

My motto is I can tell you what a photo is worth, but not what an insane rich person would pay for it.

Interesting... one can research sales of like items, same items, rarity, condition, etc etc etc.. but no one can tell what the $$ worth of a one of a kind item is IMO. Unless he or she is yoda, smoking a magic pow pow stick … or drunk..haha jk David. An item is worth what someone is willing to pay plain and simple.

How are you defining worth? In terms of monetary value?

[Splinte1941]

Originally Posted by Forever Young

Interesting... one can research sales of like items, same items, rarity, condition, etc etc etc.. but no one can tell what the $$ worth of a one of a kind item is IMO. Unless he or she is yoda, smoking a magic pow pow stick … or drunk..haha jk David. An item is worth what someone is willing to pay plain and simple.

How are you defining worth? In terms of monetary value?

An item is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but only to that person. Just because I paid X doesn't mean it's necessarily worth X on the open market.

I said necessarily...

[drc]

If it isn't already clear, I include jokes in my posts. For example, those who know me in person know I don't drink. My motto was half tongue in cheek, half my serious opinion. I don't think something's financial worth is always what the highest bidder paid. World's records, in tight rope walking to marathons, are inherently about extreme instances that don't mean much to the rest of us.

And I don't pretend to be or advertise myself as an appraiser.

[Splinte1941]

Originally Posted by drc

I don't think something's financial worth is always what the highest bidder paid.

I find it very difficult to argue this point. Shill bids in online auctions IMO are as rampant as ever to boot.

IMO.

[drc]

That's even another good point. When you see an auction price, you can't even be sure if the price was legitimate. Beyond shilling, you sometimes don't even know if the transaction went through. How can you use an price as an iron clad value, when you don't even know that price was ever paid?

Quite a few buyers have later deduced they were probably shilled when they try and resell the item and can't even get half.

For various reasons, I think going by a single sales prices is a dubious way to determine value. Obviously, savvy dealers buy things based on what they think they can sell it for later on. They are in the very business of knowing something's real financial worth is often different and changing from what the is the purchase price. The dealer didn't pay $500 because he thought it was worth $500. He paid $500 because he thought it was worth $800. He essentially bought it because he thought the $500 price tag was wrong.