Quote:
Originally Posted by ethicsprof
Your hunch that Van Oeyen made a set of Cleveland postcards in 1905 makes sense to me.
Your three in hand are truly beauties.
I have also believed that Van Oeyen was quite the pro's pro and an expert business person as well as great photographer.
I have been intrigued, however, with my one type 1 Van Oeyen photograph of
R.W Clark, a Cleveland pitcher for a few games over a couple of years, including to his fortune the world series victory year of 1920. It is a photograph of a very happy Clark with a giant smile disclosing incredibly poor teeth and horrific gum disease. It doesn't strike me as the sort of picture that would make Van Oeyen any money ever. I don't think Clark was ever pictured on any baseball card. I don't think Van Oeyen made money ever off this photograph of Clark.
As I said earlier, it intrigues me that the ole business man sometimes was just
a lover of those fine Indians.
Admittedly, Lajoie is a totally different story---one of the truly greats of all time IMHO---who could make Van Oeyen loads of bucks.
I just throw in ole R.W. Clark as an interesting aside, which may well churn the cauldron a wee bit as you incubate the various ideas/theories. Simply put, perhaps we have another occasion when Van Oeyen just loved those fine Indians once again and produced 3 gorgeous PCs---and you are the incredibly fortunate owner of them. I do wish you such good luck, ole friend.
all the best,
barry
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Barry,
About 15 years ago I was browsing in an antiques mall south of Akron when I came across a sizable panoramic photo of a Cleveland amateur team that was champion of some industrial league in the teens. The photographer? Louis Van Oeyen. Though I had the knowledge of who he was, I hadn't yet developed the appreciation, so I passed on the photo. I still regret it.
Luckily, I didn't make the same mistake on these, which were part of the Halper auction. (I've yet to read a blog post that these are forgeries, fakes or were stolen from the Hall of Fame, knock on wood.)