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Merkle923 · 01-15-2017, 04:11 PM

As somebody who actually saw the original photo archive at Topps headquarters in New York let me remind all would-be identifiers that while the images tend to appear in loose alphabetical order, you really have to visualize three facts:

1) while there were thousands and thousands of alphabetized folders neatly arranged in a few dozen filing cabinets, there were also loose individual photo shoot packets in dozens of cardboard boxes. Reaching into them could produce a bunch thrown there after an abandoned attempt at alphanetizing, or organizing by year - or it could produce a handful of random packets - or worse 90% in some kind of order (say, late '70s photos of players with names beginning with the letter "P") and then suddenly eight different shoots of Hawk Taylor.

2) the cabinets and boxes were wrapped and shipped - as was - to the Topps plant at Duryea, Pa. They were unpacked randomly. If the Topps Vault staff (literally two people) decided it needed 600 images to scan and sell in the coming two months, somebody will drive several hours to Duryea, reach in to a box and/or file and randomly pull out as many as needed. They will be scanned, and to avoid selling all 50 Hawk Taylors at once, the majority of negatives are put into another box for sale later - which is why you will see a run of players they had sold quantities of, six months or a year earlier, inexplicably reappear.

3) the Vault people have no real knowledge of the images. They are going on what the packets - notated by photographers the month the photos were taken. If the name is wrong on the packet, it's wrong on the eBay offering (they did this last week, misidentifying Norm Larker as Roy Sievers). If there is no year on the packet, they guess, so you get items like photos taken in the Polo Grounds identified as dating to 1960 when the Polo Grounds was closed between 1958 and 1961.

This is a job to them, to be done as quickly as possible. With the exception of the obvious periodic decision to "sell more stars" or "put in more recent ones," there is no more of a selection process than if you were in one of those game show booths with dollar bills flying around and you grabbed as many as you could and then a paper money collector asked you with annoyance or even shock "why aren't the serial numbers in consecutive order?"

01-15-2017, 04:11 PM	#30018
Merkle923 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2013 Posts: 2,208	Topps Vault As somebody who actually saw the original photo archive at Topps headquarters in New York let me remind all would-be identifiers that while the images tend to appear in loose alphabetical order, you really have to visualize three facts: 1) while there were thousands and thousands of alphabetized folders neatly arranged in a few dozen filing cabinets, there were also loose individual photo shoot packets in dozens of cardboard boxes. Reaching into them could produce a bunch thrown there after an abandoned attempt at alphanetizing, or organizing by year - or it could produce a handful of random packets - or worse 90% in some kind of order (say, late '70s photos of players with names beginning with the letter "P") and then suddenly eight different shoots of Hawk Taylor. 2) the cabinets and boxes were wrapped and shipped - as was - to the Topps plant at Duryea, Pa. They were unpacked randomly. If the Topps Vault staff (literally two people) decided it needed 600 images to scan and sell in the coming two months, somebody will drive several hours to Duryea, reach in to a box and/or file and randomly pull out as many as needed. They will be scanned, and to avoid selling all 50 Hawk Taylors at once, the majority of negatives are put into another box for sale later - which is why you will see a run of players they had sold quantities of, six months or a year earlier, inexplicably reappear. 3) the Vault people have no real knowledge of the images. They are going on what the packets - notated by photographers the month the photos were taken. If the name is wrong on the packet, it's wrong on the eBay offering (they did this last week, misidentifying Norm Larker as Roy Sievers). If there is no year on the packet, they guess, so you get items like photos taken in the Polo Grounds identified as dating to 1960 when the Polo Grounds was closed between 1958 and 1961. This is a job to them, to be done as quickly as possible. With the exception of the obvious periodic decision to "sell more stars" or "put in more recent ones," there is no more of a selection process than if you were in one of those game show booths with dollar bills flying around and you grabbed as many as you could and then a paper money collector asked you with annoyance or even shock "why aren't the serial numbers in consecutive order?"