Brooklyn CDV

[Matthew H]

I find it hard to believe that the owner of SRA was picking yard sales, which is usually a waste of time.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Matthew H

I find it hard to believe that the owner of SRA was picking yard sales, which is usually a waste of time.

Matt, I think that was a reporting mistake. It's more likely that pickers are simply finding very rare 19th century albumens, all over that area, and are all bringing them to Saco. I can't wait to see what they find next.

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Matt, I think that was a reporting mistake. It's more likely that pickers are simply finding very rare 19th century albumens, all over that area, and are all bringing them to Saco. I can't wait to see what they find next.

I guess yard sales in Maine are hot right now.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

...
However, that still doesn't say whether it is period or a second generation photograph of this image, or an image from another source, later attached to the Williamson mount(the glue to the right of the photo still makes this a viable Henry).
...

Now that the auction is over and Saco got $92K (close enough to the 6 digits they hoped for), I think it's safe for us to say what we REALLY think it is.

I will start by saying that testing the binder would probably have been a waste of time. I'll show you why later, but I'll start by saying that I purchased these two cheap cdv's that Haulsofshame shows on their website (Nash's story, which is interesting, though typically biased: http://haulsofshame.com/blog/?p=16333

It's actually two cdv's, not one. The one on the left does not have a backstamp, and the one on the right does not have a front stamp, so don't worry - I won't be creating a 'Frankenstein' from them. But I DID perform a simple test and will show the results in a moment. Some of us stated previously why testing the binder in the Brooklyn Atlantics cdv was important. Now I'll show you why even that isn't enough. But read Nash's blog first, and think about it. I have no idea if his 'conspiracy theory' is correct, but the important thing to ask (and we asked this previously in this thread, long before Nash pilfered our thoughts) is: "is it possible?" And if it's possible, is there financial incentive for someone to attempt it? Because if there is, they will.

Here are the two original cdv's. Unfortunately, I didn't scan the other sides of them, but this should be sufficient.

[Runscott]

I'll leave this up for a while, giving people who have any interest, a little time to think about it, then I'll describe and post scans, of the test results. I alluded to it in last night's thread regarding the Horner Wagner, but now the test subjects are 'stable', so I can scan them.

Edited: I'm not going to bump this thread, but here are my thoughts on what this item is.

I believe that it is either a prototype of some sort, or it's what Nash hypothesized, but I lean toward the former - Williamson was a professional and would not have distributed something of this quality as a final product: the image does not match the mount, and the mount is re-used. These are actually facts that you would have to be blind not to see.

It could be a prototype for something similar to the 'ticket photo' of Wright, that's coming up in REA's auction. As such, it could have been presented to a representative of the Atlantics (at their request after a team photo sitting, or on Williamson's initiative), the possibilities for use described to the representative, and then the idea fizzled. The loc item, also 1-of-a-kind might be another 'prototype' item that was created by Williamson at the same time. In other words, he was experimenting. There is another possibility, based on the fact that the two images work together as stereoview components, that I won't address yet.

Yes, other than the fact that it's poorly constructed, it looks like a normal carte-de-visite. But it does feature a baseball team, and hobbyists are well aware that many (most?) such items (team baseball cdv's) were actually used as advertising, as opposed to the cabinet and imperial-size team photos that were distributed to team members. Size is key here.

That's it for now. I have at least two additional tests to run, but I have decided to limit their distribution to a very short list of interested email recipients. Everyone else can put their blinders back on.

[drc]

I don't know. Those babies sure do resemble the Mathewson brothers.

[cardinalcollector]

The one on the right looks like Joe Jackson