Charles Conlon baseball photo archive sells for nearly $1.8M


DALLAS (AP) — More than 7,400 original negatives by baseball photographer Charles Conlon have sold at auction for nearly $1.8 million.

Dallas-based Heritage Auctions on Sunday announced the sale results for the images, from 1904 through 1942, including some of baseball's greats — Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio.

The auction house declined to identify the winning bidder in Saturday's sale. The archive became the property of The Sporting News not long after Conlon died in 1945. The images were purchased by collector John Rogers.

The Charles Conlon Baseball Photographic Archive includes 7,462 original negatives, many only surviving on glass plates. A Heritage statement says Conlon's photographs were syndicated in newspapers worldwide and used on the very first tobacco and baseball cards.