New Buck Ewing cabinet card, provenance needed?

[Detroit58]

When a Fleer Michael Jordan is auctioned off, is the “history of ownership” part of the equation or a deal breaker? When you represent a card as Buck Ewing, does it then become a question of facial recognition? If it’s passes facial recognition, does it then become a question of “is the card physically authentic”? F5606F6B-99C1-4070-96E7-35F2757664FB.jpgWhen does “history of ownership” come into play? If the Buck Ewing in question is published by a known baseball card maker, does it then become a question of physical authenticity after the recognition work has been done? Is there a need for the question of “history of ownership” at that point?

[Detroit58]

I agree it’s all about the ears. Other factors FE4E0FB7-5D22-45AB-85AF-DF984E348984.jpgcome into play when ear detail ain’t great. Does this pass the ear test?

[Casey2296]

I'll play, no it doesn't, the ear canal is distinctly different as is the pronounced peak in the photo on the right, as well as the shape of the lobe. Plus the head on your cabinet is taller than the Ewing photo you posted.

I'll admit it's a close resemblance and hope it's genuine, but you should spend the dough to have it authenticated, would be worth your while. The best advice for things like this is "Send it to Henry".

[BobC]

When a 30+ year old Jordan photo is sold, he, and likely the photographer, are both still alive and have either marked the photo or can otherwise personally verify it is Jordan if there is any question.

Your cabinet/photo is possibly 130+ years or so old, the subject and photographer both long dead, along with anyone else alive at the time it was taken to identify who this is. And with apparently no markings or writings on it to name who the photo is of, the photographer that took it, or from what studio it came. At least none that you've shared with us. There are no uniforms or signs, background buildings or landmarks, or anything else in the photo to help identify who it is and where/when the photo was taken either. And the subject is wearing a suit and tie, sporting a handlebar mustache, and wearing a bowler hat I believe, all just like so many men wore and sported back in the day.

And just because it may resemble Ewing somewhat, still doesn't make it provable it is him. I've seen photos of numerous doppelgangers over the years, much better than this one. And with no additional evidence, markings, provenance, or even a verifiable chain of ownership through till today, what you have is a nice clean old photo/cabinet of an unidentified man from probably back in the late 1800's, and that's it. Unless you can somehow get one of the renowned and respected baseball historians or so-called experts to go out on a limb and declare that is Ewing. But I wouldn't go holding my breath waiting for that to happen if I were you. Good luck otherwise.

[RCMcKenzie]

Ewing passed away in 1906 at the age of 47. The guy in photo looks too old to be Ewing.

[bigfanNY]

The Buck did not stop for that photo..

[rhettyeakley]

What we can tell from the two photos and the extent of the similarity…

They are both Human
They both have Ears
They are both likely Male

…that is about it.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Yawn. Are we being trolled?

Sincerely,

William H. "Shoeless Joe" Bonney

[Fred]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

What we can tell from the two photos and the extent of the similarity…

They are both Human
They both have Ears
They are both likely Male

…that is about it.

Rhett, you missed something - they appear to have eyes and a nose. I just wrote a testimonial in another thread about how observant and keen our board members are when it comes to these things, and now this...