Anything Wrong with this Auction?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

If you take a photograph of a tobacco card, the photograph is not a tobacco card. For the same reason that if I take a photograph of a dog, the photograph isn't a dog. That a photograph pictures a tobacco card or dog doesn't make it a tobacco card or dog.

If you Xerox a Topps card, it's not a Topps card. It's a Xerox of, copy of, or reprint of a Topps card. If Topps didn't make, authorize or even know of the making of the Xerox, it's not a Topps. Topps means "made by or otherwire for Topps Chewing Gum Copmany." Billy Joe using a Xerox isn't Topps, so he can't claim he is making Topps product. Makes no difference what Billy Joe is Xeroxing.

A card is a tobacco card if that card was made by or for a tobacco company to be used to advertise or promote tobacco. Genuine tobacco cards have pictured flowers, horses, cyclists, trees, buildings, pretty actresses and other decidedly non-tobacco subjects, so obviously what the card pictures isn't what defines whether or not it is a tobacco card. Who made the card and for what purpose, that's what defines. If Billy Joe developing photos isn't a tobacco company, he isn't making tobacco cards. Makes no difference what Billy Joe photographed.

Whether or not I seem to split hairs, the difference between "Topps" and "Reprint of Topps," and "1887 Old Judge" and "Kodak snapshot of Old Judge" should be clear.