Quote:
Originally Posted by prewarsports
There is a pretty direct correlation between the popularity of the subject and condition of press photos in general. In the NEA archive I was able to dig through, there were thousands of high grade images from pre 1930 but they are almost always guys that the paper might have received in the mail as part of a group of images and then never used the photo. The big names got used for stories and then reused over and over again being taken in and out of folders for 100 years. The Grover Lowdermilks of the World just sat there like the unpopular toys from "Toy Story" all alone and remained in amazing condition.
Some archives are just beat to hell and it has to do more with storage than anything. If the paper used open folders than they are almost always in bad shape, but if they used self enclosing envelopes for their subjects than aside from some corner bumping (sliding the photos in and out) they can still be found in immaculate condition!
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Thanks for that explanation, Rhys. When I went through my 1970's baseball cards about ten years ago, I found a 1971 Nolan Ryan in near-mint condition, for exactly the reasons you describe. I was elated that I didn't know who Nolan Ryan was back then.