OldOriole, thank you for recognizing my civility and your well wishes! My first step after doing my own research was to show the comparisons to friends and family. The consensus there was unanimous in seeing the resemblances. Now, clearly that is in no way scientific, but it helped tell me that I'm not grasping at straws, as I can assure you that if they had disagreed many of these people would have told me to shove that stereoview up my you-know-where.
After that, I sent the images to someone considered very important at SABR (I don't want to use any names here, as these were private e-mails and I don't have permission from anybody to divulge anything). He said that he felt that I might have made a very important discovery, but he wanted to pass it along to another very important SABR member who knows more about 19th-century baseball history. That person gave a thumbs down, but without any specific reason other than it would be a needle-in-a-haystack to find a Knickerbocker photo on eBay. I searched the Net for e-mail addresses of people considered to be baseball historians and authors who wrote seminal books on baseball history, including the Knickerbockers. Of the ones who responded, the consensus was that they definitely see the resemblances, but couldn't commit to saying that they are definitely Knickerbockers without further information, such as where it was taken (although a couple did say it was their belief that at least some Knickerbockers are depicted for sure). Some of them forwarded it to the same SABR person who they were not aware had already said no before, and/or to another SABR person who is considered to be knowledgeable in that era who also said no. Those two received forwarded messages so many times that they ended up getting seriously pissed at me, even though I never sent it to them directly in the first place. Nonetheless, they are the only two people of the ones I've shown it to off this board who are flat-out nos.
And again, much as with on this board, no one has been able to point out anything specific in the facial features that don't match in such a glaring fashion that it would exclude them definitely without further argument. As has been mentioned, it takes no expertise in any field to say whether two people look alike. And whether or not it's my photo, I absolutely do believe that somebody who looks at it and says categorically that he or she sees absolutely no resemblances at all without giving specific reasons is just being a jerk for whatever motive they may have. I know it's customary to give the new guy on a message board a hard time. I'm fine with that. While I am not new to the hobby after more than a half-century of collecting, and while I have read this board for several years without joining, I chose it for the specific reason of knowing that you guys would be tough cookies. I believe I've held up pretty well to the grilling. Of the naysayers you pointed out, as I've said many times, not one of them has pointed to a specific glaring facial-feature mismatch. I have posted results from completely neutral facial-match programs, including overlays that show perfect fits. I have also shown beyond the shadow of any doubt that the people who said emphatically that the stereoview cannot be from the Knickerbocker era are emphatically incorrect. Of course I'm not saying that any of that proves conclusively that this stereoview depicts Knickerbockers. But I do feel that I've demonstrated enough for people reading through this thread to stop and think that there actually is a chance it could be them, without dismissing it out-of-hand with an insult and nothing to back it up.
robertsmithnocure, I mentioned the original thread in my first post in this thread. I also pointed out that I took into account everything everybody said and realized that I was incorrect in some of my original identifications. I don't know whether the people you mentioned have seen the images that are now clearer and with correct IDs, but I do suspect from their previous comments that their opinions would not change.
drcy, thank you for your apology! Absolutely accepted!! I posted the best picture I have of both sides of the stereoview. Both are the best resolution I can get with the cameras/scanner that I have. I can't post anything else to showcase the color without adjusting sharpness, resolution, etc., which would defeat the purpose of showing the true color. I believe the side-by-side comparison with the confirmed cream-shade sample shows that it is definitely a cream color. As for your conclusion that the person you mentioned dismissing this as a Knickerbocker photograph means that you are correct for also coming to the same conclusion I need to point to only one thing. As I recall, the first thread I ever read on this board was about another purported Knickerbocker photo, the 1847 daguerreotype. The person you mentioned was one of the authorities who believed that it was absolutely Alexander Cartwright and his teammates and used it in his own book and it was included in Ken Burns' "Baseball" in which he appeared and other books and shows. The IDs of those players even changed over the years. But the other person you mentioned had serious doubts, and he and the owner of the dag hired experts and ended up with a fascinating report of dueling opinions. Reading through the Net54 commentary on that report, it seems that most people agree that the dag does not depict the people claimed. I don't know the owner personally, but I have exchanged a couple of e-mails with him and he seems like a genuinely nice guy and he's unarguably one of the world's top collectors of 19-century baseball memorabilia. I am rooting like heck for him and hope that he will eventually be able to prove the IDs in his photo. But my point is, serious doubts have been raised about that photo that had been accepted as the truth by the person you mentioned, so why would his dismissal of mine be accepted as gospel?
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09-07-2021, 10:23 AM
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