Introduction
Welcome to one of the greatest discoveries in the annals of Yankee photodom. The wire photo for sale in this listing hails from a series of photo albums (notice the album page transfer on the back)carefully prepared for posterity in the Yankee front office between the 1930s and 1960s. Our best guess is that the forward-thinking archivalist (to whom we hobbyists now owe a sincere debt of gratitude) was one Ruth Bayline. A switchboard operator-turned-administrative assistant, Bayline worked closely with the team's executives and is present in many of the non-baseball-related images, including several with Ed Barrow. Her ambitious album project appears to have come to its end around the time CBS bought the franchise in the mid-1960s.

From what we can discern, the vast majority of these photos were produced "in house" for reference/library/promotional usage by the era's official Yankee photographers such as Thorne Studios, Cosmo-Sileo and Bob Olen. Thus, they represent the exact photos that the Yankees would have issued to national newspapers and media outlets upon an inquiry for specific player images. Until those publication requests were granted and distribution took place, however, there was simply no need for the Yankees to identify their own photos. As a result, this raw collection is largely unstamped and blank-backed—in contrast to the bevy of dates, codes and copyrights that typically adorn photo reverses. Moreover, even those specimens without a visible forensic link to Thorne or Cosmo still employ the identical paper stock used by those studios. In some instances, additional known copies of these photos do exist in the hobby with the pertinent stamp record—signifying that they were proliferated more widely. In many other cases, the image content here seems quite exclusive to the inner sanctum of the franchise front office, with incredibly fresh discoveries of never-before-seen pictures. Best of all, this inside sourcing provided consistent direct access to the original negatives, which resulted in Type I photos of the highest possibly quality—bar none.

Occasional inclusions do actually hail from outside news-service agencies and thus carry the relevant stampings and/or paper captions. There is no cert or authentication papers that come along with the photo.

 

Please check out the thousands of press photos I have available in my e-bay store. Shipping and handling is $3.99 for first class shipping for as many photos you may purchase to save $ on shipping charges as long as all photos are PAID AT THE SAME TIME WITH ONE PAYMENT.  If you think you might buy multiple items from any seller that offers combined shipping, use the "Add To Cart" option under the "Buy It Now" button instead of the buy-it-now, and this will combine your purchases into one shipping charge as you add more items to your cart and purchase. Only make your payment after you have added all the items you want into your cart - you should then see that there is one charge for shipping when you go to make your payment.. (leg, 05-12, #723)