Auction Item Details
Lot 41
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Lot Number: 41
Description: Iconic Christy Mathewson "Hands above head" photograph by Charles Conlon with "My first baseball picture" handwritten notation on back c.1910s (PSA/DNA "Type II"). The definitive image of Christy Mathewson in his famed "hands above head" pitching windup pose as taken by Charles Conlon in 1904. A handwritten notation placed on the back by Conlon himself reads, "Matty in 1904, My first baseball picture." As relayed by Conlon in the two page handwritten letter likewise offered in this sale (written in 1925) "...Twenty-one years ago I went up to the Polo Grounds with a note of introduction to John McGraw...and it just happened that the first picture I made was Matty's. Since then I took a great many...They constitute practically a photographic biography of the game's greatest pitcher..." He would shoot many photographs of Matty, a number of which have become instantly recognizable in their own right however this one stands as his first and thus it is arguably his most important. This is the only example of this photograph (of any Type within the PSA classification system) which we are aware of that Conlon notated as being his "first baseball picture." Conlon's body of work has become the most celebrated photographic reference of baseball in the early 20th Century and it is fitting that Mathewson would have been his very first subject. Light toning and wear. Includes Mathewson Collection certificate of provenance and LOA from PSA/DNA: VG-EXEstimated Price Range: ($5,000-$10,000)
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