Monday, April 25, 2011

Topps Vault Picture Research - Where Have I Seen That Photo Before?

I recently saw this negative of Brooks and Frank Robinson for auction on ebay from The Topps Vault:


Looking at the picture, I wondered where I had seen this shot before. After thinking about it for awhile, it hit me:


Topps used this picture for its 2005 Brooks Robinson Topps Fan Favorite card by cropping out Frank Robinson.

Digging a little further, I realized that the shot from the Topps Vault appears to have been taken at the same time as this shot that appears in the Sport Magazine photo gallery:


Here is the actual picture as it appeared in Sport Magazine:


This B&W photo appears to have also been taken from another angle at the same time:


Tying this back to Topps, if you look at the Sport Magazine photo, you can see that the dugout in the background is the very same dugout that Brooks and Frank are standing in front of in this other photo that Topps auctioned off a few months ago:


Looking at Frank's undershirt sleeves which extend to about his elbows and at Brooks' sleeves which do not extend all the way to the elbow, it certainly appears these photos were taken the same day. The other thing that appears to be the same in this series of photos are the towels hanging up in the dugout as well as the player sitting on the bench.

Topps got a lot of use out of this particular photo session since another shot appeared on the 1968 Bird Belters card


and yet another shot appeared on the 1967 "The Champs" card (with Hank Bauer joining in):


Not bad getting three different cards out of one photo session. I wonder if Topps has a few more shots from this photo session in their archives since it appears quite a few pictures were taken that day.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the information on the Topps Vault negative; I too was thinking the same thing when I saw the negative...where have I seen this before?!? You've answered my question; thanks!

Mark