Babe Ruth glass plate negative

rabbitears · #1 10-31-2023, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Basically a photo of a photo.

2"x3" is a really small glass negative. Are you sure it's glass, and not acetate?

Either way, the smaller glass sizes tended to fall closer to the end of the glass negative era, somewhere in the 1930's or so.

steve B and D. Bergin, thank you for the great feedback!

It is most definitely glass, a bit less than 1/16th inch thick. The emulsion has a silvery appearance at a certain angle. The image changes to positive at that angle as well. It came with what appears to be an original protective cardboard. Additional images attached.

Looking closer, I agree with it being a copy of another print.

Does anyone recognize the image outside of the two sources I found? Especially, a version containing Ruth's full torso?

rabbitears · #2 11-05-2023, 07:52 AM

Recently discovered that the "ONLY known original photograph" used for the "1922 E121 American Caramel Babe Ruth, Holding Bird" card was a 5.5x7.75 print sold by RMY Auctions in 2013:

https://rmyauctions.com/bids/bidplace?itemid=21

The photo had some amazing provenance on back:

First, it provides a wonderful explanation of the odd photo (releasing homing pigeons during a Sept 26th, 1921 Yankees/Cleveland game to provide inning by inning score updates!).
Second, and more importantly for my research, it shows that the photo was N.E.A. (Newspaper Enterprise Association) sourced, stamped September 28, 1921.
- This gives some potential context for my copy negative.
- Could NEA have been the primary source for American Caramel card images?

Being the only known example of this photo, is encouraging as it suggests that there could have been very limited reproduction of other images used on the E121 cards outside of the Caramel set. Possibly, rights were signed over to American Caramel for these photos prior to card production? Purely speculation at this point.

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