Let the Bloodbath begin.. Show your Henry Yee winnings

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by Frozen in Time

I don't understand - may just be my stupidity -but all these items are clearly not Henry's, so how does that work?

Maybe he did a John Rogers. Negotiated a price for the physical slides in exchange for a combination of money and digitized files of all the pictures. This could explain the disclaimer in the listing about not including the right to use the slides for profit.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

Maybe he did a John Rogers. Negotiated a price for the physical slides in exchange for a combination of money and digitized files of all the pictures. This could explain the disclaimer in the listing about not including the right to use the slides for profit.

FWIW, all of the Burke negatives are/were from John Rogers at one time, as he is the one who negotiated a deal with Mary Brace to acquire the Burke/Brace archives. It appears that he also acquired the RIGHTS to the images, in addition to the physical negatives, as part of that deal.

I say this because someone recently contacted me about obtaining rights to print a Burke image (that I was selling a negative for) with a newspaper article he was working on. I went through the whole explanation of how I had the physical negative, but the rights to the image itself were not mine to sell, and sent him to the bracephoto.com website to contact Mary Brace about rights. Only to find out that the bracephoto site was no longer active. Luckily I had saved screenshots of a couple of the pages that happened to include the contact e-mail which I gave him. So he e-mails Mary, and she responds that he should get in touch with John Rogers as he was now the one "handling the collection." So he does, and works out an agreement for publishing of the image, and kindly let me know how the whole thing went since I was nice enough to point him down the right path to start with.

Rogers has offered several rounds of Burke negatives through Legendary's last few auctions, as well as blown out quite a few through a couple of different sellers on eBay (primarily "lexibell-racing" which is now "argenta-images02"), and though I thought a couple of the Gehrig images might have been among those, I checked my screen grabs and those offered by Yee were not among them (there was a similar one with a young boy seated beside Gehrig, but not the same boy). I haven't compared them against the ones offered through Legendary.

So all of that is to say that I don't know whether Henry acquired the Burke negatives he just sold from Rogers directly (either on consignment or direct purchase), from one of Rogers' re-sellers, or on consignment from someone who go them in one of these ways. To my knowledge though, Yee did not work out any deal with Mary Brace for the image rights or any kind of scan-in-return-for-the-physical-negatives deal.

I do hope beyond hope that John Rogers had the foresight to scan and digitally archive all of the Burke negatives before releasing them to the four winds. I would love to see something along the lines of the website he put together for the Conlon Collection done for the Burke/Brace Archive as well. If John reads this, or anyone has his ear, please please make sure that this irreplaceable comprehensive visual record of 60 years of baseball's history is preserved, intact, in some fashion, even if only digitally. Done right, it would be the one-stop-shop for high-quality images of not only every ball player to set foot on the field over the course of six decades, including every uniform variation they ever donned, but also countless umpires and other auxiliary personnel who never appeared on film anywhere else.

[packs]

I have a question about the negatives. What is the incentive to buy them if you can't then make your own copies? Also, would buying a negative and printing your own prints really be worth the cost of the negative? I'm just not understandng aside from the negative being cool, why people pay so much money for them.

[Lordstan]

Lance,
Thanks for that info. I was more speaking about the slides from Marvin Newman than the Burke/Brace negatives.

Packs,
I think it's more just about another type of collectible. I don't think anyone is going to chase anyone down if we make a few copies of the pics to give to friends or trade with. I think the bigger issue would be if you took one of the negs and tried to make prints to sell.

As I typed that above, I was wondering if anyone ever goes after the guys on ebay selling all those photos which they grabbed off the web and are printing one at a time as they sell them. I'm sure those guys love Henry's auctions as he provides nice large clear images for them to download and then resell.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

Lance,
Thanks for that info. I was more speaking about the slides from Marvin Newman than the Burke/Brace negatives.

Mark, Whoops! I misunderstood which ones you were referring to. Those I know nothing about

[BigJJ]

Who won the DiMag streak photo?

[gnaz01]

Originally Posted by BigJJ

Who won the DiMag streak photo?

Not me J, but I did get this one

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by packs

I have a question about the negatives. What is the incentive to buy them if you can't then make your own copies? Also, would buying a negative and printing your own prints really be worth the cost of the negative? I'm just not understandng aside from the negative being cool, why people pay so much money for them.

Nobody said you can't make your own copies (for personal use). You just can't sell or distribute the image or printed copies without going through proper channels and also obtaining the proper rights for reproduction. If you're motivated enough to obtain the rights as well though, you can't beat having the original negative for source material.

Also consider that for a particular image, going back to the original negative enables you to get the absolute highest-quality depiction of that image possible rather than having to settle for a vintage print that may or may not have been produced by a skilled hand and may have damage from being handled over the years. For someone like, for instance, Graig Kreindler, who adds an insane level of detail to his paintings, having an original negative of a scene or portrait he is painting is like gold because of the level of detail held within the negative. Even if you're not reproducing the actual image, being able to see details in the negative that are not as visible or clear in the printed reproduction can often be useful.

And, utilitarian purposes aside and looking at it from a purely "collectibles" standpoint, it's always neat to move up the chain to have the thing-that-made-the-thing that you collect. I would liken having the negative of a popular image to having the printing plate for a popular baseball card. In and of itself it is not particularly "displayable," but it takes on a level of desirability because of its association with and use in the creation of the more-recognizable final product.

Just my 2 cents on the subject

[Ulidia]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Rogers has offered several rounds of Burke negatives through Legendary's last few auctions, as well as blown out quite a few through a couple of different sellers on eBay (primarily "lexibell-racing" which is now "argenta-images02"), and though I thought a couple of the Gehrig images might have been among those, I checked my screen grabs and those offered by Yee were not among them (there was a similar one with a young boy seated beside Gehrig, but not the same boy). I haven't compared them against the ones offered through Legendary.

The Legendary Auction Burke negatives offered last November and this February were different - there were a few with kids that, I'm assuming, were likely from the same occasion. I was able to purchase two of the Gehrig negatives from the lexibell-racing site when they went on sale, alongside those of another 10 to 15 1930s HoF-ers (all for circa $49 each). Have subsequently purchased a few more at Legendary (Gehrig, Ruth) but invariably at higher prices.



Ironically, the only items I obtained in this Henry Yee auction were 2 lots of the 10 Burke Yankees negatives and 1 lot of the 10 Brace Yankees negatives. Clearly not the top drawer names in the lots but plenty of nice, vintage images and some well-established names such as Mark Koenig, a young Frank Crosetti, Arndt Jorgens, Spud Chandler, Joe McCarthy etc. In my view, very good value to purchase the 30 negatives at less than $200 all together.

Originally Posted by packs

I have a question about the negatives. What is the incentive to buy them if you can't then make your own copies? Also, would buying a negative and printing your own prints really be worth the cost of the negative? I'm just not understandng aside from the negative being cool, why people pay so much money for them.

I'm very new to collecting negatives (my knowledge is almost zero) but am intrigued by them. For me, it started last year when I was able to purchase some glass negatives from the first World Cup Final (soccer) in 1930.

I like the concept of having unique, one-off items that capture a single moment in history. This is, in part I think, the reason for whatever value that they have. Also, their physical link to the photographer and subject.

Personally, when I next move property, I am intending on having some high quality prints of some of my negatives on display, safe in the knowledge that the original negatives are elsewhere in my possession.

[GKreindler]

Hey Ciaran,

Just wondering, out of those Burke negatives you bought from Henry, did any of them include one of Babe Dahlgren? If so, is it something you'd be willing to sell?

Thanks,

Graig

[Lordstan]

Great stuff everyone.

Scott,
Glad I could help.
Those pictures are where they belong.
Good Luck tonight everyone.
Mark

[Ulidia]

Originally Posted by GKreindler

Hey Ciaran,

Just wondering, out of those Burke negatives you bought from Henry, did any of them include one of Babe Dahlgren? If so, is it something you'd be willing to sell?

Thanks,

Graig

Graig

Unfortunately the Babe Dahlgren negative was in one of the lots that I missed out on (which I regret, given the price that all of these lots sold for) - otherwise, would have been more than happy to. Ciaran

[GKreindler]

Thanks regardless, Ciaran! Did anyone else out there in Net54 land that Dahlgren negative? And if so, wanna sell it to a short Jewish artist (me)?

Graig

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

Maybe he did a John Rogers. Negotiated a price for the physical slides in exchange for a combination of money and digitized files of all the pictures. This could explain the disclaimer in the listing about not including the right to use the slides for profit.

I think you are right. I talked to the Newman estate several months ago in regard to the Cassius Clay negatives that were in the Yee auction.

They were actually looking to sell the rights, but they wanted a ton of money for them. I guess they had previously sold the rights to Newmans Golf photos for quite a bit, to one of the Golf publications.