Legendary current auction photo errata

[bmarlowe1]

Dec 2009 auction photos by category

Conlon/Thompson -
140 ID’d as Doc Casey is Joe Casey
163 ID'd as Harry Coveleski is HoF'er brother Stan Coveleski
184 ID’d as Danny Murphy is Eddie Murphy
285 ID'd as Harry Lord is Ralph Good
288 ID'd as George Stovall is George Stone
306 ID’d as Matty McIntyre is Harry McIntyre
370 ID’d as Bill James is Seattle Bill James to distinguish him from “Big” Bill James correctly ID’d in several other photos in this group
378 ID’d as Hap Myers is Hi Myers
380 ID'd as Elmer Smith is Joe Evans
422 ID’d as Stuffy Davis is Stuffy McInnis
423 ID’d as Stuffy Davis is Stuffy McInnis
429 ID’d as Jeff Fesreau is Jeff Tesreau
495 ID’d as Charlie Pick is Earl Moore
498 ID’d as Chief Meyers is Hi Meyers (note 505 correctly ID’d as Chief Meyers)
522 ID’d as Ray Bates is Johnny Bates
523 ID'd as Rube Foster is Eddie Foster
529 ID’d as Fritz Mollwitz is Ray Powell
598 ID’d as Ray Powell is Fritz Mollwitz
720 ID'd as Charlie Caldwell is Ray Caldwell
848 ID'd as Babe Adams is George Gibson
894 ID'd as Nap Rucker is Steve O'Neill
896 ID'd as Joe Evers is Johnny Evers: please see
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=117954 )

notes:
- all but two of the mis-identified photos had correct identification written on the back – in some cases last name only. Only items 285 (Ralph Good) and 380 (Joe Evans) had the wrong names on the back.
- In some cases correct names written on the back were ignored.
- In other last-name-only cases, apparently, the last name was used to look up a contemporary player – and where there was more than one choice they apparently guessed wrong.

DBE photos

840 ID’d as Red Murphy is Red Murray
867 Gene Moriarity is George Moriarty

Baseball 1

1094 ID’d as Cy Williams is George Grantham
1116 ID’d as Bucky Harris is Donie Bush
1158 ID’d as George Grantham is Cy Williams

[bmarlowe1]

I have been informed that corrections will be made on the Legendary site later today.

[Matt]

Mark - fantastic work!
thank you.

[bmarlowe1]

All fixed.

[Kawika]

Just noticed that the Legendary auction closes seven days hence and not today as originally scheduled. Thought their timer had malfunctioned so I called their office and was informed that they put off things by a week because of a late catalog mailout. E-mail to that effect is supposed to be forthcoming. Got my catalog on Saturday and even though they are Spawn of Mastro and all that, it has a wealth of great deadball era photos, will be a good resource and is one I will not throw away.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bmarlowe1

All fixed.

Very nice work, Mark. Your expertise is invaluable and the whole hobby (and Legendary) owes you a debt of gratitude.

[bmarlowe1]

Thanks Leon.

David said: "Got my catalog on Saturday......it has a wealth of great deadball era photos, will be a good resource and is one I will not throw away. "

David - don't forget to pencil in the corrections

As far as I can tell now, Legendary does seem to want to get these photos right.

[ethicsprof]

great work!
they should put you on a retainer or at least give you a great present!

many thanks,
best,
barry

[Abravefan11]

I know when you're working with a large amount of material that errors can and will be made. And I also understand from reading this forum that ID'ing photos can be a difficult task. But what is the explanation for many of these errors?

"In some cases correct names written on the back were ignored."

If a name was written on the back of the photo wouldn't that be a good place to start?

Was it haste? Laziness? Lack of expertise?

I'm not bashing Legendary, I'm just curious what others think.

[bmarlowe1]

Tim - I can only give you my impression, as it applies to the narrow subject I know about - identifying Deaball Era and 19thC baseball photos.

1) I have found very very few people that are really good at this
2) It represents only a very small part of the auction business - it's very tiny compared to cards, therefore...
3) It does not make economic sense to have full-time in-house expertise for this. (which they might not be able to find anyway)
4) Mis-identified photos have been sold for years without adequate challenge. Hopefully it won't be so easy going forward.

In spite of all the angry posting on Net54, someone still bid over 3 grand for Leland's photo of Miller Huggins that's really Al Bridwell - there always seems to be someone with both $ and ignorance.

Barry said:"they should put you on a retainer or at least give you a great present!"

Thanks Barry. I would not disagree with that. When I post these things prior to the close of an auction - I am adding value to the auction (at least Legendary must think so, though Leland's clearly does not). Maybe I should wait until the auction closes.

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by bmarlowe1

2) It represents only a very small part of the auction business - it's very tiny compared to cards, therefore...
3) It does not make economic sense to have full-time in-house expertise for this. (which they might not be able to find anyway)

On your two points quoted above:

It may represent a small portion of the overall auction business, but in this case it's the entire focus of the auction and not a small subset.

Even if it doesn't make sense to have a full-time in-house expert, wouldn't it warrant bringing one in for this particular auction?

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

One your two points quoted above:

It may represent a small portion of the overall auction business, but in this case it's the entire auction focus and not a small subset.

Even if it doesn't make sense to have a full-time in-house expert, wouldn't it warrant bringing one in for this particular auction?

Isn't this John Rogers' collection of photos? If so this is probably only a drop in the bucket of what Legendary is going to be auctioning off...they'd be doing themselves a favor by hiring Mark or paying him a fee of some sort to make sure the photos are properly identified.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Dan, I think that's right, and if I recall descriptions of the purchase it was just an enormous quantity of photos.