"In my opinion, this is one of the finest, most significant DiMaggio Type I photos to hit the auction block in a very long time. It's Conlon. It's DiMaggio's rookie year. It was used for Baseball Magazine's M114 premium. Above all, it's truly one of a kind. There is, and never will be, another."

-- Henry Yee, PSA/DNA authenticator and foremost baseball-photography expert 

Need we say more? The last time we showed Henry Yee a photo that stopped him in his tracks was back in 2017, when Joe Namath's rookie card-used photo sold for a whopping $66,000. Now imagine our shock and delight when we recently discovered this DiMaggio rookie premium-used photo hidden in plain sight among a large baseball-photography collection. What first caught our eye was, of course, the hologram sticker from the famous 1996 Christie's Baseball Magazine Archive Auction. Provenance-wise, nothing could be better. Next we noticed that the penciled name caption, "DiMAGGIO / Yankees," was indeed in the hand of none other than the all-time greatest baseball photographer, Charles M. Conlon. Completing the trifecta, closer examination revealed Conlon's last-name-only signature written in the corner. And that's just the fossil-record reverse—to say nothing of the iconic front image!

Yes, any Baseball Magazine collector (or Yankee/DiMaggio collector) worth their salt will immediately recognize the full-length batting shot from its corresponding M114 premium supplement, which credits Conlon in the fine print. According to Yee and PSA/DNA, this very example is the one-and-only original proof that was actually used by Baseball Magazine in 1936 to create DiMaggio's M114 premium during his historic freshman season in Yankee pinstripes. It showcases the blacked-out background, the crop-mark notations of newsroom usage, and the reference to a subsequent publication date in May 1953. Yee's important determinations are detailed on both the PSA/DNA encapsulation label and a separate full LOA from PSA/DNA. Not that condition matters much, if at all, with a unique treasure such as this, but there's some peripheral handling wear and a few central surface streaks to mention. Our expectation is that the freshly authenticated "find" may sell for upwards of $10,000.