evil skinsuit tesla photo conspiracy continued! below see the image taken apparently in 1892 vs a portrait taken in 1896 (which ive flipped so we can compare more easily)
let us discuss the evidence heretofore presented by the ebay listing
1882 stamp on the back is commemorative of an award the photographer got that year. other photos taken in the '90s have the '82 stamp -- believable. i will accept that.
"the Imperial Hotel where Tesla stayed (June 1st-3rd, 1892), and where 'Vasa Danilović's' photography studio was located then, are only a 'city block' apart" -- the studio was indeed on Knez Mihailova Street (so says the back of the photo); sources say that the Imperial Hotel was indeed absorbed into the university that is now on that street, but I cannot be sure. in any case, i'd say...medium trust.
chatGPT says it's tesla -- brother do i even need to debunk that
"the rep from The Nikola Tesla museum, did state that the photo was "of a young Nikola Tesla" -- i mean...okay? i suppose they're a trustable source, so long as the eBay seller isn't lying (which they very well may be doing)
bought from a dealer in Chicago who was sure it was "It was one of the Tesla boys... either Nikola, or his older brother 'Dane' in the photo" -- well, considering that Dane had been dead for, what, two decades by the '90s, i don't trust a word that dealer says.
forensic analysis by forensic experts that yielded a "HIGH" (sic.) score of 84% -- ok, can we have some more evidence of that? also, one has to admit that they do look similar in general, so that could very well explain the 84%.
the jacket is "the same exact" jacket as the portrait taken of him in 1890 -- see the leftmost photo above for the obvious conclusion of "no the hell it's not". in the 1890 portrait, he's wearing a fine jacket with sharp edges, pressed neatly. in "1892", he's wearing a stuffy woolen jacket more appropriate for winter, not high summer in Belgrade. c'mon.
now MY conspiracy evidence.
as stated above, although the image is not chained by the "1882" date, we don't know when it was taken! we have no proof that it was taken in june 1892, when he was actually in Belgrade! this could, therefore, be anytime in the late '80s through the '90s.
that fugly ass jacket. tesla's in Belgrade on official business. hell, he even meets King Alexander I! plus, he's a fashionista: he'll be wearing his best linen and silk. so what's fake tesla wearing here? a low- and open-necked shirt, plus a mildly ugly woolen jacket? that is not characteristic of tesla in ANY photo taken of him, where he's dressed to the nines into old age (see below)!
general physical resemblance: while the lips, chin, slim face, and deepset eyes do bare similarities, nothing else really does. the hair, mustache, and side-burns(!?) are completely dissimilar. hell, we know tesla wasn't one to change much about his appearance, and a drawing of him from March of '92 shows him with the typical hairdo (see below). and what the hell's up with the ear? it doesn't look like that in any other photo!
but the nose is the kicker for me. the real tesla has a slim straight nose with a slight bump near the bridge. fake tesla has a more pronounced hook and extension that is not consistient with the real tesla -- and indeed cannot be explained away.
so my conclusion? this is just some random guy.
this is my theoretical series of events: guy gets his photo taken in Belgrade in the 1880s or '90s. the photo somehow ends up in Chicago (probably by immigration of the owner, guy or otherwise). dealer finds the image and says "hey, that looks like Tesla, and it was taken in Belgrade!", sells it to a collector. eBay guy shows up and says "hey, got any Tesla stuff?" and the collector says "yeah, right here." eBay guy sells it on eBay for $2.5 million.
