wire photo type 1?

[prewarsports]

Its not that I dont like it, its just limited and I dont like the classification of type "IV" photos especially. The heirarchy suggests 1 is best and 4 is worse etc. In reality there are "Type 4" photos that get authenticated as "Type 1" photos A LOT because they are old ad fit into the 2 year window, many by the original photographers! People use "Type 1" interchangably with "authentic" all the time and dismiss the others as being inferior when that simply is not the case. By "rule" every composite photo in the world is a "type 4". Every 19th century cabinet which was re-photographed to make enlargements (common practice in the 19th century) is a "type 4". However these are graded/authenticated as "type 1" all the time because the age is correct on them. Its a weird loophole but it has the ability to create major problems. I also have a problem with the 2 year window of the current system because it creates an incentive to destroy back stamps and paper labels that would otherwise be incriminating. If you had a beautiful 1920 Babe Ruth photo with a 1923 date and a paper caption on it, its a "type 2". Remove the date and rip of the paper label and what do you have? Most likely now its a "type 1" as long as the stamp is of a correct vintage to be potentially from 1920.


AGAIN, I think the system as it sits does 99%+ good things and removes a ton of fraud and bad stuff from the hobby. When it was created the photo industry was the "Wild West" and the type system cleaned it up dramatically. However, now that we have ad it for 5+ years you can see there are issues with it.

Once again, I applaud Henry and Marshall for coming up with a really "good" system out of thin air when there was none. Its just not perfect is all.