Recently I've had a few people ask me how to go about placing a photo in time.
I use the "Collector's Guide To Early Photographs, 2nd Edition" by O.Henry Mace.
Lisa got it for me last year in Books-A-Million and it has been well worth its cost.
Here's the different types of photographs up to the early 1900's.
- The Daguerreotypes:
"Dag" for short was introduced in 1839 and the peak years were 1852-1854.
It waned between 1858-1860.
It was an image produced on a silver-coated copper plate. Sensitizing agent: iodine, developing agent: Mercury.
- The Ambrotypes:
It was Introduced in 1854 and was at it's peak bet. 1857-1859 it waned between 1861-1865.
It's a negative image produced on a glass plate, viewed as positive by the addition of a black backing.
Sensitizing agent : silver nitrate; developing agent: pyrogallic acid.
- The Tintypes:
Also called Melainotype and Ferrotype.
It was introduced in 1856 and was at it's peak bet. 1860-1863 but waned between 1865-1867.
It's a negative image produced on a thin iron plate, viewed as a positive due to undercoating of black Japan varnish.
Sensitizing agent: silver nitrate; developing agent: pyrogallic acid.
The last tintypes to be contained in cases were produced around 1867, marking the end of cased images.
Tintypes were produced in various other forms until about 1930.
----------Photos on Paper
- The Calotypes:
It was introduced in 1841 and was at it's peak bet. 1852-1857 but was waned off bet. 1859-1862.
It's a positive photographic image produced on salted paper from a negative produced in the same manner.
Sensitizing agent: silver nitrate; developing agent: pyrogallic acid.
- The Wet Plate and Albumen Prints:
It was introduced in 1850 and was at it's peak bet. 1860-1890 but waned between . 1890-1910.
It's a positive print produced from a glass negative on paper coated with egg whites.
Sensitizing agent: silver nitrate; developing agent: pyrogallic acid.
- The Carte-De-Viste:
"CDV" for short was introduced in 1854 and was at it's peak bet. 1859-1866 but waned between 1870-1905.
It was a Albumen print measuring 2 1/2" by 3 1/2'' mounted to a card measuring 2 1/2'' by 4''.
About the size of a "baseball card".
- The Cabinet Card:
It was introduced in 1863 and was at it's peak bet. 1870-1900 but waned between 1905-1920.
It's a photographic print measuring 4'' by 5 1/2'' attached to a cardboard mount 4 1/4'' by 6 1/2''.
Submitted by: Lisa & Don Howell lhowell@wk.net
