Rogers Photo Archive Pays $17,233.07 for Nude Photo of Joe DiMaggio

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark., July 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- John Rogers, owner of the Rogers Photo Archive in North Little Rock, Arkansas, recently purchased at auction a 1930's photograph of a nude Joe DiMaggio in the showers at Yankee Stadium.  The one-of-a-kind photo sold for $17,233.07 and captures a smiling DiMaggio.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110725/DA40704)

Rogers, who owns the largest collection of historic images in the world, has previously acquired entire archives of publications, including the recent additions of the Seattle Times and Boston Herald. Other acquisitions include the Chicago Sun-Times, Denver Post, Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and the St. Petersburg Times. The addition of the Seattle Times and Boston Herald archives will bring the grand total of Rogers Photo Archive to over 40 million photos.

The Rogers Photo Archive is the leading preservation-restoration service for newspaper photograph archives. The typical arrangement with the newspaper publications involves Rogers' acquisition of the physical prints and negatives while the newspaper gets the images returned to them in digital format with metadata attached. Metadata is information captured from the back of the photo, such as the photographer name, subject and caption. The benefit of this to the newspapers is that it is much easier for publication employees to access their photo library. A digital library is by far a more efficient research resource but is usually too expensive for newspapers to undertake themselves.

A new venture called planetGIANT.com launched in January of this year and its main purpose is to merchandise the images that Rogers owns the copyright to in a creative and affordable way to the public. PlanetGIANT.com is an internet-based company that offers products such as removable wall art and digital posters and prints featuring premium quality, vintage imagery. Through various licensing agreements, planetGIANT.com has acquired personality rights with some of the most iconic sports and entertainment personalities in the world. Examples include Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, James Dean, Joe Louis, Vince Lombardi, Jackie Robinson, and Jayne Mansfield.

Through the Sporting News acquisition, John Rogers also purchased the Charles Conlon Collection. The Charles Conlon Collection contains 8,300 glass plate and acetate negatives as well as 1,800 photographic prints shot by famed photographer Charles Martin Conlon. Conlon, who is universally recognized as the greatest baseball photographer of all time, shot virtually every important ballplayer during his career from the early 1900s until 1942. The website TheConlonCollection.com launched earlier this month which has presented for the first time Charles Conlon's historic and iconic body of work. Carefully capturing these images from their original form, fragile glass plate negatives, allows us to offer products to all levels of the collecting public. From trading cards to multi-thousand dollar Platinum Palladium fine art prints, for the first time collectors will have the opportunity to collect and enjoy the work of Conlon in its finest form.

Newspapers interested in having their archives digitized should contact the Rogers Photo Archive at www.johnrogersarchive.com.

CONTACT: John Rogers 501.414.0266

SOURCE Rogers Photo Archive