Quote:
Originally Posted by 71buc
Although I am an avid collector of news photos I must admit that my knowledge of dating photos is much more limited than others that have responded before me. That being said I am uncertain exactly how reliable the use of news bureau stamping is to determine the age of a photo. I have doubts about the accuracy of using the two year printing window for original type one photos.
Below are two images of Hank Aaron I have in my collection. The first is from spring training 1954. The stamping on the back came into use after the 1958 merger of United Press and International News. Due to this the photo is considered to be a type 2 photo which is far less valuable than a type 1 version of the same image.
The second photo is of Aaron being carried off the field following his 1957 pennant clinching homer. The Wide World Photo stamping was used between the mid1940s through 1954. What is it doing on a 1957 image? I believe that this is evidence that out dated photo stamps were not always discarded when new versions came into use. Based on this I don't think that the use of News Bureau stamping to date a photo is exact which is concerning when considering the value of type 1 photos in comparison to type 2s.
If such a three year discrepancy in stamping can exist is it possible that the 1954 image was printed in 1954 and only marked with the pencil notation and the subsequently stamped four years later after the merger? I will never know with any certainty but the possibility certainly exists. Nonetheless, I paid little for it and really love it so it really doesn't matter. Until I can be more certain about the current system of photo classification my purchases will remain conservative.
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Mike,
I think the first scenario you presented (old stamp used for stamping the back of the photo) is much much more likely than the second scenario (photo print produced, some notation penciled on the back, filed away, pulled out 3 years later and THEN stamped). Keep in mind that the dates that various stampings were used that are shown in Yee/Fogel's book are based on empirical evidence, not a hardline ruling by the news agency.
In other words, in looking at lots and lots of photos issued by Wide World Photo, they noted which stamping style was used for each while also taking note of other hard dating elements (primarily the dates on the attached paper captions). Only after accumulating a lot of such information can you then look back and say, okay, we have evidence that this stamp style A was used on photos with dates ranging from the "mid-1940's to 1954," so that must be the date range that this stamp was employed. Another stamp B has mostly dates ranging from 1955 to 1957, so we can say that was the date range for that stamp.
This is all based on observations made years later though, not a documented unilateral decree by the head of Wide World Photos that on January 1, 1955, all stamps of style A were to be destroyed and only stamps of style B employed. There may be a few instances in which a news agency changed names or a new copyright policy caused an abrupt and immediate change in stamping styles, but in most cases, old stamp styles were more or less phased out gradually, which is why you will see many overlapping dates given for the various stamping styles.
What I'm getting at is that you should take the dates given by Yee/Fogel for stamping styles for what they are: a very useful compilation/distillation of thousands of observations of stamping styles and the dates of photos they were used on (those dates having been verified by other elements of the photo). Any collector with access to enough photos could compile similar information to corroborate or expand upon what is presented in their book. (For example, they identify 6 different stamping styles for Burke and Brace photos, where I have records of at least 17 variations). Their book is certainly a good starting point though that will save the average collector a lifetime of recording observations.
This information regarding the stamping dates is useful in determining a general date range for the photo, but the use of News Bureau stamping alone to date a photo is not an exact science, and as you say, can rarely be used to give a definitive "Type 1" determination in the same way that the presence of a paper caption or file date stamping can. Given the nature of the industry, you can expect there to be a number of outliers with regard to stamping styles, and other factors must often be evaluated to arrive at a more exact date for the print.
Edited to add: I agree with Scott: Buy the photo, not the slab. As with slabbing in other areas of the hobby, the photo slab is just a shortcut to an evaluation. All the information used to determine a slabbed photo is a Type 1 was present before the photo was slabbed, and any collector armed with a little knowledge should be able to arrive at the same determination.