[Robbie]

There are so many inciteful and interesting viewpoints in this thread...

Neither Conlon (nor any other non-studio, sports/news photographer of that era) had anything I believe one would deem perfectly consistent methods, systems, and ways of doing things... Different assignments at any time, or all the time, for whomever was offering the best opportunity... different requirements for sizes, quality, speed, number of prints... other factors like whether contact proofs were needed/made, who owned/controlled/had the negatives... and then inconsistent copyright stampings that may have been done contemporaneously or not, or no stamp at all.

This leaves us with expert opinions and examples with which we can try to deduce print periods. Like others have said, this is a very good method, but far from 100% certain. Perhaps if forensics advance far enough, we can come close to answering these questions with virtual certainty?

An over-arching issue for me in all of this (and I believe for many of us), is that unlike in the pure "Art Photography World," we want the original print that is made earliest as possible after a photo is taken!

So I want that 1910 Conlon photo to be a 1910 print, as opposed to a 1915 print, or even a 1912 print. I believe that an earlier print will always be the most valuable and most preferable to just about every serious photo collector.

Your thoughts?