Knickerbocker Photo (Update)

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by prewarsports

I have been doing photography for a very long time and could write paragraphs about stereoview photography and it's evolution but suffice it to say you have a c. 1870 stereoview on your hands with it actually in my opinion most likely dating to about 1872-75...

Originally Posted by prewarsports

Your photo is 100% more recent than the 1862 known Knickerbocker photograph. The clothing and facial hair combined with photography method and presentation place this to c. 1870-1875...

Originally Posted by prewarsports

I want to walk away from this debate very badly. Once passion enters an objective assessment, you can no longer have a rational discussion. You are passionate about wanting this to be a Knickerbocker photo badly, which I get, but it is clouding your rational assessment of the history of photography which is pretty easy considering how fast the genre changed between the 1850's-1870's. It really is not that hard to date the "approximate" age of photographs as a result.

I have handled perhaps as much as half a million stereoview cards since I started collecting photography and am not a novice. Online research is one thing, handling these things consistently over years and years (more than 30 years), you start to learn things that hold true over time. I've also handled as many or more 1860's-1880's albumen prints on CDV cards etc. Here are some useful facts for you.

Fact 1: The stereoview "viewer" was not really invented until 1859. Before that date, these things were mostly daguerreotypes and ambrotypes that had to be developed and then another one shot and redeveloped at a slightly different angle and then viewed through cumbersome devices hand made one at a time. These were done as novelties and nobody owned them aside from businesses and the ultra wealthy. Paper stereoview cards may have been "invented" in 1859 as well (nobody knows for sure) but that literally means nothing. CDV and albumen technology was in its absolute infancy by the start of the Civil War. You essentially do not find albumen prints before 1862 and yours is 100% albumen. Your photo was done after the famous 1862 salt print, well after actually.

Fact 2: The oval top cut on your stereoview was not in vogue until the late 1860's and 1870's. Do a quick Google search for Civil War dated stereoviews or other images concretely dated to have been MADE in the early-mid 1860's. All have square cuts. The ones that do not were done after the Civil War as commemorative issues which were popular throughout the 19th century. I have never seen a pre-Civil War era stereoview with the larger oval cut at the top, if you find one, it was almost certainly made in the late 1860's at the earliest using an older image. This was a "style" of photography and it did not become popular until after the Civil War.

Fact 3: Absent Civil War scenes where photographers like Matthew Brady and a few others operated completely out of wagons with all their equipment including darkrooms available to them, outdoor photography was almost impossible in the 1860's and basically did not exist in the 1850's. It was an expensive and cumbersome process until the 1870's. There are almost no known outdoor albumen photographs because the lighting was tricky, the camera weighed a ton, the exposure time was ridiculous and things like clouds and wind could not be controlled and would destroy portrait shots. It was many, many times easier to produce an image in a studio so you find 99.9%+++ of all portraits and groups taken inside, until the technology got better in the 1870's.

I would bet money that if you took the "Knickerbocker" angle away and just approached 100 antique photography experts about the approximate age of your image based on style, dress, outdoor setting, oval top stereoview style etc., you will get all 100 answering that the image is c. 1870-1876. I can not imagine a scenario where a single one would estimate Civil War era and you would be laughed out of the room if you suggested 1850's because it is impossible.

Others can debate the facial accuracy, I am just going off photography style here since you said you "disagree" with my dating which I will stand behind with extensive experience.

Now I think I can walk away and wish you the best of luck on your research project. If you still question the dating, you will be fighting a VERY uphill battle but I wish you well. Take care.

Experts can be wrong sometimes, but never THIS wrong. It would be one thing if prewarsports had said something along the lines of, "I believe this is most likely from the 1870s because of x, y, and z. Earlier dates are possible, though very unlikely." But it's something else entirely to go off on a multi post rant like this, babbling on about how much of an expert you are, having handled over a million similar prints by hand, and saying that there is no possibility whatsoever of it dating to the 1850s and that 100 out of 100 experts would unanimously agree that this would date to the 1870s.

Oops.

Prewarsports, any comment on the above agreement from from 4 actual experts all dating this to the 1850s? When I'm this wrong, I follow it up with an apology and accept it as a learning opportunity and adjust my understanding accordingly going forward.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Prewarsports, any comment on the above agreement from from 4 actual experts all dating this to the 1850s? When I'm this wrong, I follow it up with an apology and accept it as a learning opportunity and adjust my understanding accordingly going forward.

I don't have a dog in this hunt, and I probably should just keep my mouth shut, but I have to ask: what experts?

The American Museum of Photography is an online only museum that appears to have not been redesigned since it was hosted on Geocities, AmericanPhotographs.com is a flickr site that you can't actually view, and the Stereoscopy Blog is run by Rebecca. They may very well be experts, but we don't actually know who they are or what their CV looks like. Furthermore, without actually seeing the question posed and the answered received, we have no idea what they said other than what Steve has told us they said.

I spent way too much of my misspent youth mucking about in the evolution-creation wars. This whole discussion triggers flashbacks for me. Motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, anonymous expert opinions, sciency sounding explanations. It's all here. Including question begging when you are asking someone to respond to expert opinions when it hasn't been established the people are actually experts.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

I don't have a dog in this hunt, and I probably should just keep my mouth shut, but I have to ask: what experts?

The American Museum of Photography is an online only museum that appears to have not been redesigned since it was hosted on Geocities, AmericanPhotographs.com is a flickr site that you can't actually view, and the Stereoscopy Blog is run by Rebecca. They may very well be experts, but we don't actually know who they are or what their CV looks like. Furthermore, without actually seeing the question posed and the answered received, we have no idea what they said other than what Steve has told us they said.

I spent way too much of my misspent youth mucking about in the evolution-creation wars. This whole discussion triggers flashbacks for me. Motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, anonymous expert opinions, sciency sounding explanations. It's all here. Including question begging when you are asking someone to respond to expert opinions when it hasn't been established the people are actually experts.

Fair enough. I made an assumption, and could be wrong. Although I do believe the museum curator that he was referred to probably knows what they're talking about.

It's funny to me that you mentioned the creation vs evolution debates. I was thinking the exact same thing earlier when reading through this thread.

[SteveS]

GaryPassamonte, thank you for posting that. It's a very cool pic!

carlsonjok, I googled "stereoview expert" and variations of that. Clearly I was able to access the websites to get the contact information and send messages which they received and responded. I posted who they are so that anyone can find out for themselves their level of knowledge and expertise when it comes to stereoviews. Without insulting anybody here, I trust their experience in the field more than some of the people here whose expertise is based on the fact that they run auctions. I sent out a bunch of e-mails, and I'll see how any other responses come back. I certainly would post contrarian opinions, but so far, all have been consistent. I uploaded the front and back of the stereoview here so anybody seeing it can render an opinion. God/Science bless you (I don't know on which side of the argument you were.

smokelessjoe, here are the results I promised. I ran the people in the back against the people in front of them. The results were 42%, 52%, and 59%, with all showing "from different persons."

[SteveS]

Snowman, yes, I figured anyone reading through this thread can see the name of the museum I posted earlier. There aren't a plethora of people in this world who specialize in stereoview expertise, but I found the ones I could. If anyone here who doubts them would like to recommend someone I haven't already contacted and hasn't already seen it on this board, please provide me the contact information and I will be more than happy to send the images to them for an opinion.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by SteveS

GaryPassamonte, thank you for posting that. It's a very cool pic!

carlsonjok, I googled "stereoview expert" and variations of that. Clearly I was able to access the websites to get the contact information and send messages which they received and responded. I posted who they are so that anyone can find out for themselves their level of knowledge and expertise when it comes to stereoviews. Without insulting anybody here, I trust their experience in the field more than some of the people here whose expertise is based on the fact that they run auctions. I sent out a bunch of e-mails, and I'll see how any other responses come back. I certainly would post contrarian opinions, but so far, all have been consistent. I uploaded the front and back of the stereoview here so anybody seeing it can render an opinion. God/Science bless you (I don't know on which side of the argument you were.

smokelessjoe, here are the results I promised. I ran the people in the back against the people in front of them. The results were 42%, 52%, and 59%, with all showing "from different persons."

Awesome, now since they are obviously different people how do those percentages compare to 2 random people? Like if you ran a pic of you and me.

[OldOriole]

Originally Posted by SteveS

carlsonjok, I googled "stereoview expert" and variations of that. Clearly I was able to access the websites to get the contact information and send messages which they received and responded. I posted who they are so that anyone can find out for themselves their level of knowledge and expertise when it comes to stereoviews. Without insulting anybody here, I trust their experience in the field more than some of the people here whose expertise is based on the fact that they run auctions. I sent out a bunch of e-mails, and I'll see how any other responses come back. I certainly would post contrarian opinions, but so far, all have been consistent. I uploaded the front and back of the stereoview here so anybody seeing it can render an opinion."

Steve, I probably would have tried googling experts too, much the same way you did. I'm just not sure - and this may be part of Jeff's point - that I would say "All are worldwide-recognized photo experts, specifically stereoviews" (as you did in post 245). Not from one google search, anyway.

[SteveS]

bnorth, here are the leading MVP candidates. Fernando Tatis Jr. with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. gets 55%. Tatis with Shohei Ohtani gets 35%. Both "from different persons."

OldOriole, in my Google search I did see them cited in websites outside the US. And if ESPN can call themselves "the worldwide leader...."

slightlyrounded, I know that at least three of them match to the same level, as I did it originally with the natural orientation. As I said before, I thought I had read that stereoviews are reversed. But as I related above, the expert explained it much clearer that the images are transposed, not reversed. But I just did Avery in his original orientation and he's 88% and "from the same person" (posted below).

[slightlyrounded]

I can't wait to be on my deathbed and think about the month I wasted debating the identities of all present at 'the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Boise Osteopathic Association' or somesuch, lol.

[drcy]

The website is interesting and I'll check it out (Good to know it is able to say that Willie Mays and Tommy Lasorda are not the same person )

A question no one has asked: How does anyone know that the photo is even from the United States?

With the cabinet card you have the luxury of knowing where and by whom it was made.

[slightlyrounded]

Originally Posted by SteveS

GaryPassamonte, thank you for posting that. It's a very cool pic!

carlsonjok, I googled "stereoview expert" and variations of that. Clearly I was able to access the websites to get the contact information and send messages which they received and responded. I posted who they are so that anyone can find out for themselves their level of knowledge and expertise when it comes to stereoviews. Without insulting anybody here, I trust their experience in the field more than some of the people here whose expertise is based on the fact that they run auctions. I sent out a bunch of e-mails, and I'll see how any other responses come back. I certainly would post contrarian opinions, but so far, all have been consistent. I uploaded the front and back of the stereoview here so anybody seeing it can render an opinion. God/Science bless you (I don't know on which side of the argument you were.

smokelessjoe, here are the results I promised. I ran the people in the back against the people in front of them. The results were 42%, 52%, and 59%, with all showing "from different persons."

To be fair, now that we're using unmanipulated (ie no longer reverse images) comparisons, the original "matches" you were claiming (see post #56) have now fallen apart as well.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

To be fair, now that we're using unmanipulated (ie no longer reverse images) comparisons, the original "matches" you were claiming (see post #56) have now fallen apart as well.

Do you have the actual #s from when the pictures are not reversed? It would be interesting to see the change.

[slightlyrounded]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Do you have the actual #s from when the pictures are not reversed? It would be interesting to see the change.

Here are a few...I wouldn't put ANY stock in these results either way personally.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

Here are a few...I wouldn't put ANY stock in these results either way personally.

I wouldn't put much stock into them because the old pics are so blurry and small there is no way for it to be accurate IMO. Still cool to see and play around with. I found and bookmarked the site.

[smokelessjoe]

Steve,

Lets avoid summarizing and try to be as detailed as possible. This way we can all learn from the experts and have a better understanding of the photo in question.

1. What specifically about the clothing led all three experts to the mid 1850s date?

2. What specifically about the mounting design led all three experts to the mid 1850s date?

3. Can the experts explain how an overlap in the photo is indicative of dates in mid 1850s

Also, I was not asking that you compare the guys who are front and back of each other but rather the ones you feel most resemble each other - as you did with the Knicker photo.

For example, can you run a report on these two guys.

Thanks for running those reports