Original or Repro? Lajoie Red Devil Tobacco Poster
 

Can anyone tell me if this is real or not? Measures 10" x 15". Thanks.

doesn't look good to me.
Matt

Not at all disputing, but how can you tell? What stands out to you?

This type of piece really has to be examined in-hand. The thickness, the number of sandwiched layers, or plys, of the poster, magnification of the printing, etc.

A scan from one perspective alone, such as this, should not serve as definitive evidence for or against authenticity.

The majority of mono-chromatic inked, paper collectibles have this in common. Some, like the Homogenized Bond cards and TCMA minor league cards have been knocked off so many times that a knowledge of and in hand examination of the paper is essential for a determination.

Looks like a fake. Overall condition looks to good to be true, mainly the surface. I personally don't like the sheen that comes off the text. IMO its a fantacy piece.

Albert

Could very well be, Albert, and that's my first inclination too, but I see enough there to not completely eliminate it from possibly being genuine pending confirmation by physical examination, for which there's no substitute on a piece like this to really dial in on an opinion.

Bumpus, is there any background story to this piece?

Common poster which first popped up on ebay and the flea markets in 2006. Can be punched in bundles of 100 for $259.00 at northeast repo wholesalers

Not surprising. Every valuable black and white or sepia and white paper sports collectible from cards to posters, post cards to exhibit cards, etc, seems to have been knocked off en masse at one time or another.

What's different about this is that they used a multi-ply material instead of the usual one to two plys.

On these types of things, take a 20x+ loupe or magnifying glass and examine the text. If the edge of the text has a thin dark rim around the edge, that is consistent with vintage letterpress printing. Without going into the print technicals, vintage letterpress involving pressing the ink so that there would be a dark rim at the edge where the ink was pressed to. The rim is not seen with the naked eye, but is usually clear under good magnification. Modern lithography and computer prints won't have the rim.

Simpler things to look for are that antique prints (and photos) tend to be bone dry and often pass the musty smell test.

Great segment last week on 60 minutes on art forgeries. It shows what someone will do to deceive

A good thing is to handle antique paper and cardboard items, including cheap non-sport items in the attic, barn and at antique stores. You'll get a feel (and smell) for old stock. Hard to beat hands on experience.

Awesome piece it was, greatest forger of all time fooled everyone. Makes you think real hard about buying expensive items with little experience Opened up the eyes of the world.
Mike

Missed the 60 minutes episode, but I've read about many of the famous art forgers. Perhaps the most famous one was tried for treason in the Netherlands after WWII, because it was deduced that he had sold Jan Vermeer paintings to the Nazi Field-Marshal Hermann Goering. Goering accumulated a huge art collection of the masters (aka 'Nazi looted art') and the particular paintings in the stash were traced back to the guy. Vermeers were considered national cultural treasures and selling them to the Nazis during war time was considered a huge No No by the Dutch. The pressing problem for the forger was the sentence for treason was death. His defense in court was the Vermeers weren't real and he painted them. The judge didn't believe him and he was forced to paint a painting in court to prove his proficiency. After showing his proficiency, he was instead convicted of forgery with a significantly lighter sentence.

Two interesting things about these famous forgeries. 1) They aren't always motivated by greed. The above painter was a skilled, academically trained painter who made a full time living painting, but was mad at being critically dismissed by the elite art community. His revenge was to fool them by painting forgeries of masters and passing them off as real. He thought he would prove he really was a great artist by making fakes by the masters (I don't buy that theory because I consider originality not wholesale imitation an essential quality of a being an artist. But that's what he thought). He forged other artists as well. 2) Most forgeries are confirmed by scientific testing (and the tests such as radiometric and x-ray testing of paints often definitively prove items fake), but the tests are done after suspicions arise from collectors, dealers and other experts. Even in the old days, the art community would talk to each other Net54-style and people would say certain things didn't look right.

Coincidental to this post, I'm working on a pamphlet on identifying antique commercial printing. Identifying printing is both a neat skill to have as hobbyist (can tell a friend that is an engraving and this is an etching), but is the big key to authenticating items such as posters and signs.

Lastly, I recently wrote a brief article on some of the science used in forgery detection. If you're interested. From carbon dating to the $9.99 black light. Some of the most advanced scientific techniques, including invented by Nobel Prize winners, are used to dating art and artifacts. A Physics Nobel Prize winner at University of Chicago did the first carbon dating of the dead sea scrolls and scientists can tell you when a long ago buried artifact was last exposed to sunlight (say, from burial site, an ancient city buried by lava or dating when an Egyptian tomb was sealed). But a collector holding up a card to the sunlight to check the 'see through' effect of the stock is a scientific test too, if more informal and less advanced . . . . And, as the article explains, everything has it's limits, even science in art authentication.

The source for this and other Lajoie posters, tins etc were the Lajoie Baseball Guides. They were published 1906, 1907 and 1908.

All of the advertisements in the guides where endorsements by Lajoie.

You can find out more and see the original examples of the ad pages here

http://baseballhistorydaily.com/2014...heptol-splits/

http://baseballhistorydaily.com/2013...aseball-guide/

So when you see there type items, most if not all are just enlargements from some other source with a picture or other stuff added.

The problem we as collectors have is that we want these things just like the farm tool handle bats, to be real especially after we buy them

Great advice from drcy. Handling old things that are similar gives a feel for what's old and what's not. Add a bit of simple technology like a good magnifier and a cheap blacklight and you can figure out a lot of things.

Learning what different sorts of printing look like up close is very useful. In another hobby it can show the difference between fake, real but cheap, and rather expensive. (Or real but altered.)

Steve B

Thanks for everyone's opinions on my question. I will pass this info long to my friend...