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Do You OWN Research. DON'T Trust TPG Blindly. Details & Dates DO MATTER. KNOW Your Subject.

Hello All. PSA/DNA "Titanic" Underwood and Underwood press photo, date stamped April 19, 1912 (just 4 days after the sinking). Listed for $10,000. Unsold thankfully (I think). Neat, huh? Wow! 

Unfortunately, that is obviously the just completed New York Chelsea Piers sitting right out the promenade windows on the left. It has been previously published as such. So...absolutely 100% sister Olympic in NYC, 1911, perhaps her Maiden Voyage. Now, I have been advising authors, researchers, modelers, publishing my own work in this area, dealing to collectors and selling to museums in the UK for only 17 years, but I am fairly certain the point was that Titanic did NOT reach her White Star Line Pier 59 in NY, which is IN this photograph? That negative number just sitting there...this also leads somewhere if one doesn't recognize what is right out the windows... ;) And as I mentioned, it has been published. 

This is why I do my own research and why I don't buy if I can't "see" it myself. This is why I believe dates and details are extremely important. Know your subject. Buy with your own eye. Perhaps one can argue the cert is "just" for the print as published and the very incorrect subject title does not come into play... - some sort of "we are just a venue..." or some such nonsense. I think otherwise. Subject must be correct!

Below I have tinted the structures that serve to positively identify New York in green (it was green). This combined with the fact the the image was originally published before Titanic was fitted out (linked below) eliminate any other possibility. You can see these structures in my pier candid above it you look closely. How long it takes to change a database I do not know, but this is something else to remember every time I see those darn stickers:

Photo in question published as Olympic Jan. 1911 & Dec. 1912

And something special for me below - a very rare and literally unique hand-tinted candid photograph taken aboard the Adriatic, which took the very last living Titanic survivor, Millvina Dean, back to England with her mother and brother. Her father was lost. She signed this for me just before she died early in 2009. It was among her last autographs. I selected this image deliberately for the content - this would be where she and her mother and brother sat going back home. I like to imagine that is her mother and her looking into the camera seated center (this photo is a bit later - C. 1920). I have never seen anything like it - just common post cards, usually modern reproductions. The rest of these colored images were sold to and published by liner researcher and author Mark Chirnside, whose excellent books and articles I have advised and supplied images for going on many years. His work on Olympic is regarded as superb. Some of the Olympic photographs I identified and authenticated have been published by him. Some came from the same album as the pier photo above. I was contracted to do the color restorations of the Cunard liner Aquitania for his Aquitania: The Ship Beautiful. It was the first time 30 or so true color Kodachrome images from the late 1930's to 1951 have ever been published. A great honor for me. 

 

EDIT TO ADD:

I'm back at home and have more time than I did when I posted. I decided to do the obvious and look for the image online - and it is there, misidentified at several websites. It is common then and now to mistake one for the other. Olympic was much more photographed for obvious reasons, and it was just easier to use the image at hand after the disaster, as in this instance. With a bit more poking (under 3 minutes in all), I just found the image in question online correctly identified as Olympic; originally published in Modern Sanitation, DECEMBER, 1911 vol. 8, No. 12 (Page 446-451) and JANUARY 1912 Vol. 9, No. 1 (Page 12-16).

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Oh GC, it was! 

I had a similar experience with Conway Twitty just before he passed. There were no white gloves and the only thing very tight were the blue jeans. Kind of like a Porky’s style bar- cheap beer, easy women and the only thing the photographer worried about angle wise was not giving away Conway’s wig. Very loose.

Indeed, I see the strong similarity. It reminds me, I was invited to the launch party for "Titanic 2" aboard the Intrepid, by Clive Palmer. An Australian...uh...well, someone like another so-called multi-billionaire...

This being an obviously insane venture, I refused to sign on and attend, despite being seated at a table with Michael Bloomberg, James Cameron and Celine Dion (they ultimately chose not to show either). One does what...one can. Or will.  

I was also to be at the first showing of the "Big Piece" in Boston, and then New York in 1996(?), but the peice was lost and sank back down. I recall it was early Internet days, a dot matrix printout telling me it had just sunk again. I was on the phone within seconds and was among the very few that were able to cancel their attendance. 

Great stuff, Eric.

As an aside, I mention that the man that had me photograph this private party on the QM2 in 2009, has just died at the age of 81 on April 20th. Another well known dealer. Few left now among the old lions.

Here is John's autograph in fountain collected by me in 1995 when we first met on a pre WW1 Mauretania menu card.

Click for full image:

Eric, just a couple of things:

1. Henry Yee sells all sorts of press photos on eBay. He has massive listings but only every 3 to 6 months. I have bought from them but anything popular (Babe Ruth, Marilyn, Earhardt etc.) tends to go sky high. I think he has had the odd Titanic press photo but I can't remember when the last one was.

2. There is an ocean liner exhibition coming up at the V&A in London. Starts 8 February. I collect Titanic and Olympic material so I'll be going late March. Here is a link:

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/ocean-liners-speed-style

Hi Eva,

As Mr. Yees expertise is described at PSA with sports memorabilia and he is familiar with press photographs, I don't understand this obvious error. The dates on these photographs are often wrong - many of you know this. To rely on the blurb is...simply wrong. The sports bit sticks in my gullet, but that does not equate to getting it wrong. Three minutes Google. This a factual error. Less forgivable to me. It is not an opinion, but a fact. Published in 1911/1912. Taken June, 1911. Some of the published images of Olympic's Maiden Voyage have been authenticated and sold by me. As well as scrap images. 1911-1935. This is not a Titanic photo, but something related. It is online and has been. Of value yes, but the subject description/subject...is violently and inexplicably incorrect.  It has been published as Olympic for 107 years? New York is visible? This is factually incorrect authentication and at $250+, with it published in 1911 and also online, is disturbing to say the least.

Neat exhibit! Thank you! One photo is apparently misidentified though (it is expected in this context). ;)

 

By the way, even if this were the Titanic the asking price of $10k would be over the top in my opinion. If it were a press photo issued before she sailed maybe it would be different. Most post-sinking press photos go for a lot less than $10k (maybe in the high hundreds or low thousands).

Back up for sale again - 10K OBO. More letters & calls, emails and evidence forwarded to the authenticator as well. We shall see. 

Olympic "Titanic" PSA certed press photo @ PSA Database

Hi Eric, where is the photo being sold? I haven't seen it on eBay. Could you post a link maybe?

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