Memorabilia
Longtime collectors shine spotlight on new avenue for collecting with original film negatives, historic pinbacks
For the last 40 years, Marshall Fogel has shown he has a special eye for what is collectible.
The owner of some of the finest vintage baseball cards of all time—including the crispiest of the three 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 10s—and famous game-used bats, Fogel is sharing his knowledge on a couple of lesser-known segments of the hobby.
Fogel has co-authored two books that are sure to be hits for collectors.
“A Photographic Journey Through Time” explores original film negatives from the collections of Fogel and fellow collector Ben Weingarten. Photography guru Henry Yee also lends his expertise on the subject.
“Buttons from the Diamond” dives into the history of pinbacks in baseball, as well as other sports and displays the massive collections of Fogel and Mike Hefner.
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Fogel and his collecting counterparts wanted to tackle these book subjects because there isn’t much literature available in these two areas.
“I’m excited about this with Ben and I and Henry and Mike,” said the 85-year-old Fogel. “To think that in this day in age we have something new to offer is special.”
ORIGINAL FILM NEGATIVES
Fogel has an extensive sports photography collection, and he’s written a lot about this area in the space.
In 2005, Fogel and Yee, a photo expert for PSA, put out a book together titled: “A Portrait of Baseball Photography.” Three years ago, Fogel and Weingarten collaborated on “Baseball: A Photographic Journey Through Time,” which discusses Type I and all the other classifications of photography.
Fogel and Weingarten’s most recent book zooms in on original film negatives coming from antique glass plate negatives, medium and large format analog formats to modern 35-millimeter film.
“Over time, the glass plates and the large format and small format image negatives started to come out from the different new services and newspapers and when we looked at the images on those Type 1s, they are absolutely stunning and never been seen before,” Fogel said. “Once you write something and give it credibility, it creates a market. Once they learn about it, they’ll collect it, because they really are a new avenue to collecting memorabilia. And the second thing is they’re automatically one-of-one.”
Yes, each negative is a one-of-one in its purest form. That is one of the neat aspects of photo negatives is there isn’t another exactly like it that exists.
Even in the 21st Century, an image from a glass plate or 35MM negative can be made into a print—a Type I image.
“What I do with mine is I have them print it and then I give them out to my friends and my clients, they just love it,” Fogel said. “You can also frame the photographs. You can take it the next step.”
Technological advances over the years, of course, made glass plates and film photography obsolete. But there is an ever-growing market to collect negatives of some never-before-seen images that were captured.
Fogel and Weingarten have been collecting original negatives for years. The two avid collectors selected a great group of high-end photos for the book. It’s not just baseball images, but some classics from football, wrestling, basketball, boxing and golf.
“They had to qualify in terms of the importance of the image and the condition of the item,” Fogel said. “What’s great about the publication is you open it, you’ll see a copy of the image, and then you’ll see what the image looks like in a photograph, so you get the benefit of both.”
There are images of Rocky Marciano in color, shots of a young Muhammad Ali that have never been seen before, along with Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig.
An extensive portion of the book is dedicated to photos taken by Sports Illustrated photography pioneer Marvin Newman.
“One thing about Marvin Newman is he really perfected the use of Kodachrome, which now they don’t make anymore,” Fogel said. “If you look at some of the older color photographers’ images, they’re kind of opaque and flat but not with Marvin Newman. He was a very good friend of Mickey Mantle early on in Mantle’s baseball career. So, there’s a lot of early images of Mantle in the publication.”
Fogel calls his new book an enlightenment of a new way of collecting.
“Not only that, it gives you an opportunity to have some of these important images without having to spend the kind of money that you’d have to spend on a Type I photo, which at this point are expensive,” Fogel said. “If you’re a Babe Ruth collector and Type I’s are unaffordable, find a glass plate or a large or small format and have it developed. You can enjoy only something that has the image of Babe Ruth without having to worry about not being able to afford it.
“Do I think over time these things can be worth more? As soon as demand exceeds the supply, the price goes up. So, this is a great opportunity for people to get into it now.”
PINBACK POPULARITY
When pinbacks first found their way into America’s Pastime, names such as Cy Young, Cap Anson and Connie Mack were stealing the headlines on the diamond.
For a good 75 years, pinbacks—commemorative or promotional buttons that feature an image, player, team or event—were in style.
Now, these vintage, small relics are highly collectible. Pinback collectors Fogel and Hefner have hundreds of examples in their book, “Buttons from the Diamond.”
“It’s a treasure trove of images of different pinbacks from different periods of time,” Fogel said. “What it does is it really describes the history of baseball through the images of the players depicted on those images. Some of the images are stadium images.”
Fogel noted that it wasn’t uncommon for images used on pinbacks to also appear on other pieces of memorabilia or cards.
“Even back in the early 1900s, people loved to wear them on their lapels and shirts,” Fogel said. “We have images in there of photographs of kids selling these pins at the stadium outside the gate. So, it was very popular after World War II in more of a consumer-based way of distributing the pins. The collection in the book really spans from the late 1800s up till the point of the 1970s.”
Pinbacks featured all the star players of each era. Just like cards, big names can fetch major prices.
A Ruth pinback from 1915, his first full season in the big leagues, is a prized possession these days. In 2022, an ultra-rare Ruth/Boston Red Sox 1915 American League champions button sold at auction for $70,092.
Pinbacks weren’t just designed for baseball players and teams. Other sports got into the mix and highlighted their top athletes.
“Mike and I really have pretty complete collections of quality pinbacks of major players, not only in baseball but football, boxing and other sports,” Fogel said. “And, so, the pinback book has a lot of sports subjects in it, like Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson and so on.”
Pinbacks have a storied history in sports. In their book, Fogel and Hefner help collectors visualize and capture what makes these items special.
“A collector who obtains this publication will have a real encyclopedia of pinbacks and appreciate the beauty of them and the importance of them as well,” Fogel said.
- Copies of both books are available through various U.S.-based auction houses. Collectors may also pick up a copy at the Memory Lane Inc. booth at The National.
