Post your antique and vintage photos taken before the1950’s

Freakscene said:
I’ve been making digital negatives to make platinum prints; orotones would be beautiful and are a great idea. I can make my own silver chloride emulsion that should work better than the Rockland product.

One supplier of the cases is: modern reproduction cases for antique wet plate images (tintypes, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes)

Marty
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I think that’s the place.

At one time nice condition Union cases were plentiful in antique shops but I rarely see them now.

You’re right, mixing up my own silver chloride or bromide gelatin emulsion would be no problem. I have everything right here except the gelatin and that won’t be any problem to source.
 
Freakscene said:
Your family has short generation time!
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Some generations are short others are longer. 🙂

My daughter born, 2014.
Me born, 1977.
My father born, 1953.
My father's mother, 1926.
My father's mother's mother, 1889.
My father's mother's mother's mother, 1854.
My father's mother's mother's mother's mother, 1828.

/Anders
 
I had forgotten I had this image. It’s a tintype in a beautiful Union case and is a post mortem of a child. Post mortem images were common at that time.
 

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Freakscene said:
This is amazing. The tone is incredible.
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Whoever shot and printed it really knew what they were doing. It’s even nicer in person.

I need to dig through my drives. I have a scan of an 8x10 glass plate that’s probably from 1890-1900 that I bought years ago. It’s a woman artist doing a painting of a gentleman and it’s gorgeous. I might have a platinum print I made of it, can’t remember, but I should post it too.

In the early 70’s I apprenticed under a master commercial photographer. The gallery just up the street spun off of a commercial studio that dated to the late 1800’s. I printed from some of the 16x20 glass plates shot by the two brothers that started the studio in the of a stage play of black actors dating to the late 1800’s. I wouldn’t call them masterpieces but for the time they were shot they were amazing. Just consider the very slow speed of dry plates at that time the couple that with ultra slow lenses and a 16x20 format on location, amazing.

At that time the common lenses were rapid rectilinears with a maximum aperture of f8.

Many years after the Knaffel Bros studio closed it still stood I disturbed. I was passing by the building one day after lunch and saw the front door was partially open so I invited myself in. It was in the late 70’s and the studio had been closed probably 50 or more years. Inside though, all the equipment was in place like everyone went out for lunch one day and never returned. I didn’t see a camera but the huge camera stand was still there and quite an array of carbon arc lights that I’d guess dated to the late 1800’s. It was just amazing stepping back in time like that.
 
Here’s another tintype. Looking close you can see each man is holding a shot glass with something in it. 😁
 

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I knew several “old” commercial photographers. One I used to fill in for worked for 70 years and two others I knew lived to be over 100. One that I worked for for a few months had a major disaster occur during one of his shoots.

Jim Thompson was his name and either late 19th century or early 20th he was hired to photograph a new opera house on opening night. At intermission he was supposed to set his 8x10 up on stage behind the curtain and when the intermission was over and the curtain opened he would make a photo of the audience. In the audience was the governor, mayor and many state and city officials.

Me Jim as he was known was nervous because he had only one chance. In those days flash powder was used so Jim loaded his flash tray with flash powder but overloaded it significantly.

When the curtain came up Jim uncapped the lens and fired the flash gun but due to excessive powder he caught the curtain on fire and nearly burned the theatre to the ground right in front of the governor and dignitaries.

Mr Jim was pretty sensitive about this so his grandson told the dtory for him.
 
x-ray said:
Whoever shot and printed it really knew what they were doing. It’s even nicer in person.

I need to dig through my drives. I have a scan of an 8x10 glass plate that’s probably from 1890-1900 that I bought years ago. It’s a woman artist doing a painting of a gentleman and it’s gorgeous. I might have a platinum print I made of it, can’t remember, but I should post it too.

In the early 70’s I apprenticed under a master commercial photographer. The gallery just up the street spun off of a commercial studio that dated to the late 1800’s. I printed from some of the 16x20 glass plates shot by the two brothers that started the studio in the of a stage play of black actors dating to the late 1800’s. I wouldn’t call them masterpieces but for the time they were shot they were amazing. Just consider the very slow speed of dry plates at that time the couple that with ultra slow lenses and a 16x20 format on location, amazing.

At that time the common lenses were rapid rectilinears with a maximum aperture of f8.

Many years after the Knaffel Bros studio closed it still stood I disturbed. I was passing by the building one day after lunch and saw the front door was partially open so I invited myself in. It was in the late 70’s and the studio had been closed probably 50 or more years. Inside though, all the equipment was in place like everyone went out for lunch one day and never returned. I didn’t see a camera but the huge camera stand was still there and quite an array of carbon arc lights that I’d guess dated to the late 1800’s. It was just amazing stepping back in time like that.
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That slight pink tone is a dead giveaway for gold toning. When Luminos Warmtone was available, a little polysulfide toner like Agfa Viradon then complete gold toning would make the most amazing pink tone in the highlights but leave the shadows much less changed. Lovely.

Quite a treat to have walked into an untouched old time studio. Amazing.
 
I hope others will keep posting pix and comments and I’ll keep posting.

Group photos seem to be much less common. This tintype is close to 1/4 plate.
 

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J. J. Albright by Berang Berang, on Flickr

Here's another, this one printed as a RPPC. The locomotive was built in 1863, and originally named J.J. Albright. It was scrapped in 1912, and the picture probably dates to c.1910, given the many "modernizations" the locomotive has gone through. A group photo probably taken as a memento for the crew of a very old locomotive that was obviously nearing the end of its useful life.
 
Loving all these tintypes. For some reason they didn't keep being used in the UK as they were in the US, so they are rare on this side of the pond. I'll try to get some time to edit some scans of my oldies.
 
This one is very typical of the era.

I have a whole plate tintype of my great grandfather I need to copy and post. I think it’s the only whole plate I’ve seen.
 

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Firstly - an ambrotype of my gt gt gt grandmother and, probably, my gt gt grandmother on her lap. Circa 1860.
hayes.jpg
Secondly, one of the villages in Essex, England, that my ancestors are from - this is before 1911 when a closk was put on the church. I assume it's an albumen print, and it's big - 6 3/4" x 8" or so.

Sampford bridge smaller file.jpg

Thirdly, bit of a cheat here, I do have a period reproduction of this as a postcard, but this is actually a scan of the whole-plate glass negative - I'd got a number of postcards from this village, and in 2020 what should appear on ebay but 18 glass plate negatives - so I actually own the negs of some of the postcards I have collected! I've actually rung the bells that were cast from this, broken, bell when the tower was finally restored in 1960. This is probably late 1920s.

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The negs are really interesting - the same motorcycle, with a huge sidecar with a big hood, turns up in several of them - I wonder whether she (they were bought by the vendor from a lady who had worked as a photographer) might have had a darkroom in the sidecar? Certainly in a number the village name is scratched into the edge of the plate, so she knew where it was, and the framing is generous to allow for cropping - in the postcard of this, the writing (indian ink on the glass) is much closer to the edge of the frame.
 
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