Two sweet Ebay finds. On the left....An original Civil War era tax-stamped carte de visite portrait photo of Ella J. Young, taken by photographers Pine & Bell of Troy, Rensselaer County, New York. This has the then-required internal revenue tax stamp to pay for the Civil War. The stamp is initialed by the photography studio (P&B). This photo was taken between August 1864 and August 1866, but as she is obviously a "tween" here, this photo was probably taken in 1864 or early 1865. She was born in 1853 so she was probably 11 or 12 in this photo. A life-long resident of the city from a prominent family, Ella was the daughter of Troy dentist Orange R. Young & Maria Bardwell, attended the Troy Seminary for 4 years, and married prominent businessman Stephen H. Williamson, who had a large livery stable and horse/vehicle rental business in downtown Troy. Sepia toned albumen print carte de visite 2 1/2"x 4".
Photo on the right is also a carte de visite sepia toned albumen print c.1870... 2 1/2" x 4". taken by the New York Gallery studio of photographer J.H.Peters in San Francisco.
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Stereoview card of Telegraph Hill as seen from Nob Hill. I saw this image in the book "Earthquake Days" and found an original card on Ebay. These are original photographic prints mounted on cardboard. Stereoview photographs are taken by a camera with two lenses, which takes two separate photos about 2.5" apart, which is approximately the distance between our eyes. The photos appear identical , but in fact are both slightly different. When viewed with a stereoviewer, the two views assimilate into one, and the brain percieves the image in 3D. Stereographs (and magic lantern slide shows) were very popular at the turn of the century. 3 1/2" x 7" , H.C.White Co. 1906.
Magic lantern slide showing the destruction of City Hall. 3 1/4" x 4" Underwood & Underwood Co. 1906. Another Ebay find. Basically, a photographic lantern slide is a positive print of a photograph on a glass slide. Lantern slides were “matted” by a piece of opaque paper laid on the slide, which both masked out edges or parts of the image not wanted in the frame. Finally, a second slide of glass was laid atop the glass slide with the positive print and these two pieces of glass were bound firmly together by pasting a strip of paper around the edges. The sandwiched glass plates held the matte or mask in place and also protected the positive photographic print from dust and scratches.The final slide was then ready to be viewed in a lantern slide projector. Picked up a nice tintype photo off Ebay last week for $6. Very good condition, Portrait of young woman; 1/6 plate (2 1/4" x 3 3/8") Tintype , c.1875. Note hand tinted rosy cheek. Like daguerreotypes, tintypes are one of a kind photographs. They are not prints. A thin piece of metal is "japanned" (coated with a shiny black enamel and baked). Then the plate is coated with a collodion emulsion, sensitized, exposed in the camera, and finally developed. It is actually a negative image (and hence laterally reversed); the black background making the negative image appear positive.
The photo on the right is by the master English photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe. I've had this print since 1975. "Fishergirl", Polly Swallow of Church St. holding fish net, c.1880, Whitby, England, Sepia toned gelatin silver print made in 1975 from the original glass plate negative. 8x10 inches. |
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