Featured Not certain what I have. Not exactly cabinet cards I believe.

Hey y'all!! Thought I would slide over from the pottery & glass forum I have several photos on cardstock (64, except 6 that are tintypes) for several years just because it is daunting to figure out exactly what I have. It's time I tried to do something with them. I know what cabinet cards are (approximately 4 1/4" x 6 1/2") and CDVs (approximately 2 1/12" x 4 1/8"). I have a bunch that don't fit these sizes. Thought I would start with the most of 1 style that I have. These are all 5" x 6" (11) and 12th one measures 5 1/4" x 6 1/4". All have writing on the back and quite a few with handwritten dates of 1904 with the largest one being dated 1906. All the backs look the same. All have an iridescent sheen like a negative like a gelatin print? But from what I've read gelatin prints are on glass. It's all clear as mud to me, LOL.HELP! please. Thank you.

 

At this period in time, the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were two common types of photographic prints on paper. Albumen prints were reaching the end of their popularity, and were being replaced by gelatin silver prints. Based on what I can see, your photos might be either type. Albumen prints are typically on very thin paper and almost always mounted on heavier card stock for needed support. Gelatin silver prints are printed on heavier paper, but also were often mounted. (I don't know what you might have been reading that suggested they were on glass, unless it was referring specifically to some types of negatives.)

Sometimes the color of the images can help in identification. But at this time the colors of albumen prints could be quite variable depending on whether they were toned by various methods or not.

The ways they change and deteriorate over time can also provide clues, but both albumen prints and gelatin silver prints can show the type of "mirroring" that is visible on several of your photos.

Here is some additional information on both types of prints -

https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/atlas_albumen.pdf

https://gawainweaver.com/images/uploads/Weaver_Guide_to_Gelatin_Silver.pdf

 

Thank you 2manybooks. I'll be sure to check out those 2 sites. These are definitely paper applied to cardstock. That makes them albumen prints, correct? At this size are they still considered Cabinet Cards or are those basically the ones from studios?

The first post here on this forum has helpful websites. This is from one of them. Graphics Atlas

The gelatin dry plate process is based on the light sensitivity of silver halides, which are suspended in a gelatin binder on a glass support. The process was used to make both negatives and positive transparencies popularly known as lantern slides. Richard Leach Maddox was the first to successfully make a gelatin dry plate negative in 1871. The process underwent many improvements by a variety of people before it was commercially viable in 1879. Some of the key improvements to making gelatin emulsions included having an excess of halide (salt) in the emulsion (1874); washing the emulsion to remove excess salt and impurities (1874); a procedure called ripening in which the emulsion is heated increasing light sensitivity (1878); machine coating (1880); and finally dye sensitization extending the sensitivity beyond the blue spectrum of light to green light (commercialized in 1882) and to then to the full visible spectrum (1906).

 

In the late 1800's Kodak began introducing simple, affordable cameras, film, and film processing, which allowed people to begin taking their own photographs. That's what your photos look like, and if that's the case, those are likely gelatin silver prints. The unsightly silver mirroring effect is caused by silver ions migrating to the surface. Acid is part of that process, and if the photo album paper contains acid, that can hasten the degradation of old photos through silver mirroring. I have hundreds of family photos from 1900-1910. The ones mounted in albums seem to suffer from silver mirroring more than the loose photos. The paper in those albums looks similar to the paper in which your photos are mounted. The earliest Kodak cameras took photos in a round format, but before long they made cameras that took photos in rectangular format. Rectangular photos though, could be printed in circular or oval format. Among our old photos, there are some shots for which we have more than one print, with one print being full rectangular, and another being cropped oval like yours.

 

No, not necessarily. Both types are paper prints, but albumen prints are on thinner paper than gelatin silver prints. To distinguish them by the paper, you would need to be familiar with the characteristic thickness of both, which I wasn't sure you could do.

The glass plates they are talking about are the negatives, from which the paper prints would be made.

@smallaxe made some good observations about the format, and is probably correct that they are early amateur photos.

 

Thirded. Someone had a camera and took home pictures. Either they did their own developing too, black and white isn't that difficult, or took them to a local drugstore for processing. It was fun to see what the camera saw. Most of the old ones are outside, since you desperately needed enough light because film speeds were really slow.

 

George Eastman, Kodak, and the Birth of Consumer Photography -

https://gawainweaver.com/images/uploads/Weaver_Guide_to_Gelatin_Silver.pdf

 

Thank you everyone for the enlightenment.

 

I do have a picture that someone suggested may be early Kodak but at that time I wasn't able to verify.

This "square" is applied to cardstock unlike like those above with only the oval or round picture is applied
The ones above you can actually see the difference in thickness of the picture and cardstock
Measures 4 1/4" wide x 5 1/4"
The center is 2 3/4" diameter of a man holding a baby.

 

What state did you find these in?

Debora

 

North Carolina

 

This may be a later copy of an older kodak photo - in other words, a photograph of a photograph.

 

That's what I'm thinking, too.

@*crs* , just for information, these are not technically cabinet photos or cabinet cards, which were only certain sizes and pretty much didn't exist long after 1900. I tend to call this type of photo a "card-mounted photograph," as I don't think there is a name for them. The taking of cabinet photos did last longer in Europe and some other parts of the world, as did cartes de visite (CDVs).

This page lists names for some types of card-mounted photos in the 19th century. These would all have been taken by studio photographers, not individual consumers.
https://cwfp.biz/cdvcabinet_sizes.php

 

Thank you