This auction is for the VINTAGE CIRCA 1947-1948 4x5-INCH SINGLEWEIGHT BLACK AND WHITE GELATIN SILVER PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINT OF LEGENDARY COMPETITIVE BODYBUILDER, PHYSIQUE MODEL AND ACTOR STEVE REEVES SHOT BY WEST COAST PHOTOGRAPHER CECIL CHARLES AT THE FINALE OF A 1947 OR 1948 PHYSIQUE COMPETITION.


UPDATE: I've been told by an informed watcher that this may be BILL MELBY, who won the 1948 Mr. Pacific Coast competition (while I still wonder if this isn't Reeves from the 1946 Mr. Pacific Coast competition, which was the first competition in which he competed, and which he won). Although this is possible or even likely, based on the face and chest, I still have lingering doubts, based on the white trunks and particularly the calves (which Melby did possess by the 1950s, but which are still lacking in the late 1940s photos of him published and attributed to Bruce). So I'm going to change the item title and let you guys decide.


This photograph is in VERY GOOD condition, with some crazing diagonally at the top left quadrant of the photo that is evident when the print is turned in raking light.


Like most collectors or fans of classic physique photography, STEVE REEVES always held a special place in my heart (and my collection) because of his utterly handsome good looks, his magnificent (and completely natural) physique, and the fact that he was successfully able to cross over from the physique world into films. Steve was also very accessible to fans, and for a small fee and postage costs, he would sign items for collectors who were fortunate enough to get his address. I corresponded with Reeves for more than a decade until his death in 2000, and during those years he signed a great deal of material for me -- much of which I've kept aside for my archive, and some of which I've sold over the years to buy other material.


Steve also was unique in that sometimes I would send him material he didn't have, and which he wanted for his own collection. Knowing that my wish-list included specific images by certain photographers with whom he'd shot early in his career, he would sometimes send his wife, Deborah, to dig through materials in storage to come up with something special for me, and those are items I will always treasure. One of the great regrets of my collecting life is that I didn't have the money to buy Steve's Hasselbad camera kit, in a custom case embossed with his initials, when he offered to sell it to me -- and by the time I had gathered the money, he had sold it to another collector. But there also was a stack of material I never got around to sending him before his death. The vintage photograph I'm offering this week will be of interest to fans of physique photography who don't own a vintage print of Steve Reeves showing him in his prime in the late 1940s when he was at the peak of his competition prime. And always smiling!


I'm starting this auction at a very reasonable opening bid amount, with FREE SHIPPING within the U.S.

Please check out my other auctions for similar items, and thanks for looking!


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