Editing Cottingley Fairies (section)

==Initial examinations==
Gardner sent the prints along with the original glass-plate negatives to Harold Snelling, a photography expert. Snelling's opinion was that "the two negatives are entirely genuine, unfaked photographs&nbsp;... [with] no trace whatsoever of studio work involving card or paper models".{{sfnp|Magnusson|2006|p=99|ps=none}}<!--important to retain the big difference between unretouched and 'showing faries'--> He did not go so far as to say that the photographs showed fairies, stating only that "these are straight forward photographs of whatever was in front of the camera at the time".{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=389|ps=none}} Gardner had the prints "clarified" by Snelling, and new negatives produced, "more conducive to printing",{{sfnp|Magnusson|2006|pp=98–99|ps=none}}{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=382|ps=none}} for use in the illustrated lectures he gave around Britain.{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=382|ps=none}} Snelling supplied the photographic prints which were available for sale at Gardner's lectures.{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=401|ps=none}}<ref name=crawley/>

[[File:CottingleyFairies2.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=Photo|The second of the five photographs, showing Elsie with a winged gnome]]

Author and prominent [[Spiritualism (religious movement)|spiritualist]] [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] learned of the photographs from the editor of the spiritualist publication ''Light''.{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=383|ps=none}} Doyle had been commissioned by ''[[The Strand Magazine]]'' to write an article on fairies for their Christmas issue, and the fairy photographs "must have seemed like a godsend" according to broadcaster and historian [[Magnus Magnusson]]. Doyle contacted Gardner in June 1920 to determine the background to the photographs, and wrote to Elsie and her father to request permission from the latter to use the prints in his article. Arthur Wright was "obviously impressed" that Doyle was involved, and gave his permission for publication, but he refused payment on the grounds that, if genuine, the images should not be "soiled" by money.{{sfnp|Magnusson|2006|pp=99–100|ps=none}}

Gardner and Doyle sought a second expert opinion from the photographic company [[Eastman Kodak|Kodak]]. Several of the company's technicians examined the enhanced prints, and although they agreed with Snelling that the pictures "showed no signs of being faked", they concluded that "this could not be taken as conclusive evidence&nbsp;... that they were authentic photographs of fairies".{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=384|ps=none}} Kodak declined to issue a certificate of authenticity.{{sfnp|Magnusson|2006|p=101|ps=none}} Gardner believed that the Kodak technicians might not have examined the photographs entirely objectively, observing that one had commented "after all, as fairies couldn't be true, the photographs must have been faked somehow".{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=385|ps=none}} The prints were also examined by another photographic company, [[Ilford Photo|Ilford]], who reported unequivocally that there was "some evidence of faking".{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=385|ps=none}} Gardner and Doyle, perhaps rather optimistically, interpreted the results of the three expert evaluations as two in favour of the photographs' authenticity and one against.{{sfnp|Smith|1997|p=385|ps=none}}

Doyle also showed the photographs to the [[physicist]] and pioneering [[parapsychology|psychical researcher]] [[Sir Oliver Lodge]], who believed the photographs to be fake. He suggested that a troupe of dancers had masqueraded as fairies, and expressed doubt as to their "distinctly 'Parisienne{{'"}} hairstyles.{{sfnp|Magnusson|2006|p=101|ps=none}}

On 4 October 2018 the first two of the photographs, ''Alice and the Fairies'' and ''Iris and the Gnome,'' were to be sold by Dominic Winter Auctioneers, in [[Gloucestershire]]. The prints, suspected to have been made in 1920 to sell at [[Theosophy (Boehmian)|theosophical]] lectures, were expected to bring £700–£1000 each.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hester |first1=Jessica Leigh |title=For Sale: Legendary Photographic 'Proof' of Fairies and Gnomes |website=[[Atlas Obscura]] |date=28 September 2018 |url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cottingley-fairies-photographs-for-sale|access-date=3 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003175451/https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cottingley-fairies-photographs-for-sale?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_10_2_2018)&mc_cid=d153f00e17&mc_eid=9f3ca0a886 |archive-date=3 October 2018}}</ref> As it turned out, ''Iris with the Gnome'' sold for a [[hammer price]] of £5,400 (plus 24% [[buyer's premium]] incl. VAT), while ''Alice and the Fairies'' sold for a hammer price of £15,000 (plus 24% buyer's premium incl. VAT).<ref>Dominic Winter Auctioneer website, Sale Results, retrieved 26 March 2019.</ref>