this is going to take awhile- Commemorating-Baseball's Immortals / Photographs by Charles Martin Conlon / The National Portrait Gallery at The Smithsonian Institution Charles Conlon- The Father of MLB “Golden Era” Photography From the turn-of-the century to World War II, Charles Conlon captured in black-and-white film the Golden Age of baseball. Both the heroes and the heartaches of the game were revealed in his telling baseball photos. He supposedly put his camera away once the World Series ended and didn’t unpack it again until Opening Day. Conlon’s thousands of photos are more than surface studies. They’re time capsules full of baseball’s superheroes. In the beginning Conlon worked right on the field, stationed behind first or third base. From Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Joe Jackson to Honus Wagner, Joe DiMaggio and Christy Mathewson, his photos bring the power, drama and emotion of those early days back to life. As a photographer for Sporting News, and the New York Telegram; it was Conlon who shot the original 1906 Honus Wagner glass negative used to make the famous T-206 baseball card. It was Conlon who captured the classic 1913 Shoeless Joe Jackson portrait. It was Conlon who shot the most famous Babe Ruth close-up. From the bottomless lines in Ruth’s forehead to the 1910 photo of Cobb slamming into third base on a steal in a cloud of dirt and spikes, Conlon immortalized the moment. Most of the ball players in the major leagues knew Charley. But, from his position behind the camera he remained anonymous to most of the public. That’s one of the reasons why a collection of Conlon’s work became the centerpiece of a baseball exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute in 1984. The collection was comprised of 66 images deemed by a panel of experts to be the best of Conlon’s work. The images were printed in the early-1980s directly from Conlon’s original glass negatives under the supervision of Sporting News. Famous Charles Conlon Ty Cobb Photo Sells for $77,098 December 6, 2015 By Rich Mueller Sports Collector's Daily The only known original example of one of the greatest baseball photographs ever taken sold for $77,098 early Sunday morning through RMY Auctions. It’s believed to be a record price for a 20th century sports photo. The auction marked the first time the image of Charles Conlon’s ‘Ty Cobb Sliding’ had ever been offered publicly. The iconic photo, taken at Hilltop Park in New York in July of 1910, is one of the most recognized Cobb photos ever taken. The 8×10 silver gelatin photo captures the image most fans have of Cobb, grimacing as he slides hard into third base where Jimmy Austin of the Detroit Tigers was taking the throw. Charles Conlon built an amazing archive of images with little fanfare during his lifetime, but now he is recognized as the father of baseball photography. In Charles Conlon’s most iconic image, Ty Cobb slides ferociously into the New York Highlanders’ Jimmy Austin. Researchers believe the photo comes from the Tigers/Highlanders game on July 23, 1910. The original image, as shown here, includes the left arm of the Tigers’ third-base coach and more of the packed bleachers at New York’s old Hilltop Park. In printed form, the photo is frequently cropped just to the right or left of the umpire. Conlon became an incredibly productive photographer, creating tens of thousands of images ranging from informal but stunning portraits to revealing candid shots to action shots (often from the field of play, just behind first or third base) that belie their age and the era’s technology. Sorting Out the Archive Between 1904 and 1941, Charles Conlon created at least 30,000 images. Around two-thirds of them, alas, didn’t survive. Conlon himself destroyed untold numbers, as legend has it, during a cleaning phase midway through his career. Thankfully, 8,354 Conlon negatives did survive. McCabe collaborated with her brother, baseball researcher Neal McCabe, on two books compiling the photographer’s finest works: Baseball’s Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon (1993) and The Big Show: Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball Photographs (2011) Overdue Fame If Charles Conlon were around today, he no doubt would be shocked by the fact that so many fans and experts consider him to be baseball history’s most important photographer. After all, he “labored in anonymity,” as the Albany Daily Gazette once put it: “Even upon his death in 1945, newspaper obituaries in Troy, N.Y., where he grew up and later resided in retirement, and Englewood, N.J., where he lived for 40 years, barely mentioned his work as a baseball photographer.” Neal McCabe said the photographer didn’t realize much financial reward from his images: “He did it because he enjoyed it.” Even Conlon’s classic action photograph of Ty Cobb sliding with fire and intensity into third base—one of the most enduring images in baseball history—didn’t exactly pad his bank account. In 1937, the photographer himself-(Conlon) estimated that he had received, up to that point, more than 1,000 royalty payments for that single image, but they didn’t amount to much. “Each time, he’d get anywhere from a dime to 50 cents,” Neal McCabe said. “So, what did he make from that over the years, $250?” Furthermore, the sheer value of Conlon’s baseball photography would likely astonish him. Consider these prices paid for vintage prints in recent years: • $32,588 for an original first-generation print of Joe Jackson—a portrait pose created in 1913 or 1914 (Robert Edward Auctions, 2012) • $21,500 for an original 1910 print of another Jackson photograph, this one a swinging pose (Heritage Auctions, 2015) • $20,000 for a print of Babe Ruth in a c. 1927 swinging pose (Hunt Auctions, 2008) • $10,700 for an original print of Ruth, also c. 1927 (Leland’s, 2014) A bidder at Robert Edward Auctions paid $32,590 in 2012 for this original Charles Conlon print (categorized as “Type 1” by the authentication firm PSA/DNA) of Shoeless Joe Jackson. The uniform dates it to 1913 or 1914, when Jackson was playing for the Cleveland Indians. He hit .373 and .338 those two seasons—and those marks represented “off seasons,” for the lefty slugger. After all, Jackson hit .408 in 1911 (his rookie year) and .395 in 1912. The White Sox acquired him late in the 1915 season. This is a nice 1993 Conlon Commemorative 8X10 Collection of Pics: ________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ Next Up, Conlon's Commerative 1986 Smithsonian Sepia BB Card Set
1986, 12,000 Sets printed, 60 Cards in a Set: pretty rare for a modern era BB Card Set. just a couple, notice the water stains on the backs of a couple of these cards, one reason I always buy 2 sets of everything. The 1st set, is still in its Factory Wrapped air tight Package- ________________________________________________ Eye Candy-
Absolutely amazing stuff Rob. You know looking over Gehrig's numbers its hard to believe that he put up those numbers in really only 14 full seasons. Thanks for sharing.
I had first heard of Conlon's glass negative Smithsonian collection, in what was then the trade journal- 'Sports Collectors Digest', a Krause Publication out of Wisconsin. SCD was a 300 plus page weekly publication, with insightful stories, interviews, in depth articles on who's who of the Sports Hobbyist, like Halpern when He was a minority owner, had one of the largest Yankee Collections of anything one could think of. I had a subscription SCD from the earliest 80s; until 96, when the Hobby had been poisoned with big money speculators, thinking their was gold to strike in a Hobby gone nuts. Now the speculators have left the hobby SCD is approximately 30-35 pages, and half of that is Price Guides. Not at all what it was, like most things today vs the end of the innocence of the early-mid 90s. The SCD Writing Staff, was a who's who of Collectors, Memorabilia, Expert Autograph, Game Worn/Used Equipment, Authenticator's, who Wrote some of the most incredible, insightful articles, from tendencies of Ball Player's signature's and signings, to Game Worn Jersey specialist, who could tell a fake, or the year, player, size, special features of the players, Teams, Fans, Hobbyists, Seller's with anything you were looking for, then some. SCD was an over-sized 14X18" paper trade mag, with half its contents Sales Ads, from multiple full page ads by the largest dealers and baseball enthusiasts like Al Rosen Mr Mint, (not the ballplayer), what a story in itself, that is Mr. Mint's game changing finds of unknown old packed away estate sales, with incredible collections, like one in particular: A Man in his mid 30s inherits His Father's House. He had never been in the attic prior to his Dad's passing. His Dad was a Candy Distributor in Chicago, and had left without anyone knowing, an entire un-opened jumbo case of 1952 Topps Baseball Cards, with out a seal being opened. Once the sale was complete, (as Rosen flies out to finds like this one), paid the guy 1/4 Million in Cash, for a 3 foot square un-opened box. Once Rosen opened the box, inside he saw half of the individual card boxes, had been destroyed by Silverfish. However, the other half was in pristine condition, MINT 10.0's, including WTF- 28 Rookie Mickey Mantle Cards, ........ he more than made a small fortune, and his money back selling not only the "Best Quality Mantle RC's" in the market, and most Collections by big guys, like the deceased Barry Halpern, who can afford toys, memorabilia we only dream of. Thus- I had read of the Conlon Negatives in SCD first, yet had seen some of His Classic Photos, but had a vague knowledge over 'the guy' who had glass negatives of the greats Golden Era players, on file in the Smithsonian. SCD, promotional articles for Conlon's first sets of BB Cards, began around 1981, which was also the same time SCD came into existence. I quit getting SCD in 02, when they sold out to another printing co., by then like the hobby, it too had blown away all but the pure hobbyists. Call it the Great Depression Crash of the 'penny stocks' some fools thought cards were, however Memorabilia still retains its value, and continues to rise in prices, like all good collectibles do in time. I pre-ordered the Sepia Sets shown, and have a few other sets. Same way I found the 93, 8X10 set. Several sets have been found as inserts in BB Card packs over the from 88 to 95 Topps... Links: Mr. Mint: His bio resume is incredible, the entire site is worth looking at. http://www.mrmint.com/about.html Conlon- Sets and History: http://conloncards.blogspot.com/p/1981-sporting-news-conlon-collection.html SCD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_Collectors_Digest
