An early 1900s editor for The New York Evening Times, Charles
M. Conlon remains the most famous baseball photographer of all
time. He shot many of the most famous images of early baseball,
including of legends like Babe Ruth, Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Joe
DiMaggio and Christy Mathewson.
Conlon's old employer, The Sporting News, has a nice section
about their photographer, including a nice article
Conlon wrote about himself:
As you might expect, there is great market demand for Conlon's
photographs and his photos of Hall of Famers can fetch high prices,
sometimes in the thousands of dollars. While not rare as the
hen teeth photos of Carl Horner of Joseph Hall, many of his original
photos are difficult to identify due to Conlon's inconsistent
marking. While the popular contemporary photographers like George
Burke and Horner made the collector's life easy by clearly including
their names on nearly every of their photos, Conlon often did
not stamp his and his handwriting was messy and not intuitively
decipherable. I've seen numerous cases where the collector or
dealer did not realize he owned an original Conlon.
The easiest way to identify most original Charles Conlons
is by looking at the photo's back and examining the stamping
and handwriting. Most photos are identified by the presence of
one of his stamps and/or his distinctive handwriting.
* 1) Personal stamp: He often placed one of his stamps, including
his name and often with an address, on the photo's back. Of course
this makes the photo simple to identify as his. But he didn't
always use his stamp.
* 2) Conlon's signature, initial and/or notes. Usually in
pencil, Conlon often signed his last name ('Conlon') or his initial
('C') and hastily circled it. He wrote his last name with a big
'C' followed by a hasty small-lettered 'onlon.' His handwriting
is hurried and often messy. He also usually wrote a caption of
the image or similar notes at the top. Again, his handwriting
his hurried and messy.
Deail showing Conlon's stamp and circled last name (Image
provided by Julie Vognar. Thanks to Kevin Struss who also kindly
provided images for me to look at for this article).
In cases, Conlon did not stamp or even sign his photos, but
most are marked with his stamp and/or signature or initial.
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