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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Topic started by: pammyw on Thursday 02 February 06 19:39 GMT (UK)
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I am lucky enough to have my gt gt grandmothers wedding 'photo taken in 1856. As they were just poor ag labs how much would this 'photo have cost? and how many weeks wages would it have taken to pay for it?
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Hi Pam,
Are you sure it's a daguerreotype? It's a bit late for one...could it be an Ambrotype - a photo on glass?
Daguerreotypes were very expensive and really out of the reach of the less-affluent classes. Ambrotypes were slightly cheaper but still would have been expensive - maybe this photo was a wedding gift from someone or a group of people who pooled their money?
Cheers
Prue
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Thanks Prue, it could be an amberotype I don't really know the difference.
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Hi again Pam,
It takes a bit of practice to distinguish between them, that's for sure :)
First off, is your photo in a frame or a little box, and does it have glass over the front? Any chance of posting a photo or a scan of it?
Prue
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Hi Prue
sorry I can't seem to send a copy, but it is in a little box, the actual 'photo is on glass framed with a bronze coloured metal. The image is reversed because her wedding ring is on her right hand according to the 'photo. Does this help?
Pam
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Hi Pam,
Yes, it definitely helps - it sounds like an Ambrotype to me. This is an image on glass and you are quite right, the image is reversed because in reality the Ambrotype is a "direct positive", i.e. the glass was put in the camera, the photo taken, and then the glass had a negative image on it. The glass was taken out of the camera and processed, and then assembled, usually in this order: black card, black painted back of the glass, or black cloth; photograph; metal frame (usually oval or some fancy shape); a piece of cover glass; paper tape to seal around all the edges; a gold coloured metal frame around teh whole lot; put the package into the tray or box and there you are!
They're beautiful things and you are lucky to have one. If you can manage to post a picture of it, I'd love to see it and just confirm that it is what I say it is!!
If no-one else comes up with the info, I'll see if I can find out how much people would have had to pay for one of these photos. Are you in the UK?
Cheers
Prue
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Prue
Many many thanks for all the info' I will try again to send a copy, then I might read the instructions!
Pam
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Hi Pam,
I have one of these too...(of my Great Grandparents, taken on their wedding day in Swansea in (approx) 1860. My husband says its a silver colloidon pic, (on glass).
I will try & copy it here,- & you can see if its the same as your one.
Best Wishes, Romilly.
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Prue
Hopefully this will work
Pam
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Hi Romilly, yes it does look the same, I think I need a lesson in attachments The file was too big to do it in colour and you have to click to open the picture, never mind got there in the end.
Pam
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Pam,
If you save the pic as a JPG, - it'll take up less space. Also, you need to make it 300 or less to post on here.
Like you, I'd like to know how much they cost...My G/Grandfather was a Copperman & presumably didn't earn much.
Best Wishes, Romilly.
PS. Just downloaded your pic, - what a beautiful photo!!
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Hi Romilly
Thanks for that, Yes it is a nice picture, hard to believe that the sweet innocent bride was tried for murder 18 months before! found not guilty for the murder of her child, really through a technicality, the child was alive when the police found the baby but died a few hours later. hence she did not murder the baby, the baby's father (a married man) committed suicide. My only exciting ancestor to date.
pam
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Hi Romilly
Thanks for that, Yes it is a nice picture, hard to believe that the sweet innocent bride was tried for murder 18 months before! found not guilty for the murder of her child, really through a technicality, the child was alive when the police found the baby but died a few hours later. hence she did not murder the baby, the baby's father (a married man) committed suicide. My only exciting ancestor to date.
pam
Gosh Pam,
How fascinating!! None of mine are as interesting as that, - just the odd bit of bigamy & suicide... ;)
Which part of the country were your G/Grandparents from?
Romilly.
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Hi, all that branch of the family from Great Rissington, Glostershire, lucky for me been there since 17 something and some still live there.
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Hi, all that branch of the family from Great Rissington, Glostershire, lucky for me been there since 17 something and some still live there.
Oh...lucky you, Pam,
Mine had itchy feet, - & ducked & dived all over the place! ;D ;D
Cheers, Romilly.
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Hi Romilly I see you have Rees family in Wales, I haven't been brave enough yet to do my Griffiths in Wales.
Pam
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Hi Romilly I see you have Rees family in Wales, I haven't been brave enough yet to do my Griffiths in Wales.
Pam
LOL...at least we're not looking for Jones's! ;D
Btw, - I'm still hoping that someone on here will be able to tell us how Coppermen & Ag Labs could afford those fancy glass pics...
Romilly.
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Hi all,
This is a great thread! Those are some seriously nice photographs, and in such beautiful condition. You are very lucky people, and I'm insanely envious!! ;D
Romilly is right, they are more correctly known as "wet collodion positives on glass" (the Ambrotype was a patended variation on this process) - I found this article about them: http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/ambrotyp.htm
Here's a bit from the same website about daguerreotypes: http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/daguerro.htm - it shows at the end how much daguerreotypes would have cost; unfortunately the ambrotype article doesn't have that info :-\ I'll see if I can find that elsewhere.
Thank you for sharing the photos with us! :D
Prue
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Hi again,
I just turned to a little book I have called "Victorian Cartes de Visite" by Robin and Carol Wichard (1999. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications) and found the info you wanted about costing. Just goes to show that books are still useful in this internet age ;D
Daguerreotypes:
"The only country not to benefit from Daguerre's...gift to the world was Britain, where Daguerre took out a patent on the process. Few British photographers were willing to pay the licence fee and in consequence the process was restricted to relatively few professional portrait artists..."
Ambrotypes:
"In Europe, at least, the ambrotype process, requiring no licence and little skill, soon eclipsed the popularity of the daguerreotype and, in no time at all, framed ambrotypes were being offered for as little as sixpence, which truly made photography available to all levels of society - even the poor....cheap, wooden-framed cases were ... manufactured, covered in embossed cardboard, papier-mache or, more rarely, leather."
Cheers
Prue
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Hello Prue,
Many thanks for all that info, - & for all your efforts on our behalf!
I'm guessing now, - but I would think that although 6d sounds a pitifully small amount to us now...at the time it would have been a much bigger outgoing to a porely paid worker, - such as our G/Grandparents were.
Thanks for all the help,
Best Wishes, Romilly.
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try this site to compare value,
http://eh.net/hmit/ukcompare/
I did a quick value
6pence in 1860 is worth £1.53 using RPI (2004 was the latest year you could use)
Newbie
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or using all 5 indices
In 2004, £0 0s 6d from 1860 is worth:
£1.53 using the retail price index
£2.24 using the GDP deflator
£14.03 using average earnings
£17.41 using per capita GDP
£36.21 using the GDP
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An interesting link on prices of old photo's can be had at this site
http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_prices_charged.htm
My personal favourite on here is a chap by the name of Sotires Georgiades who purports to be Greek, How amazing to find a Greek practising photography in Glasgow in 1850. Mind you I still believe we totally underestimate the ability and enterprise of people from earlier times - we must always remember that these people did and achieved amazing things with but a fraction of our vast rescourses.
PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO
75 PRINCES' STREET
MR. SOTIRES GEORGIADES respectfully informs his Friends and the Public that he continues to execute DAGUERREOTYPE PORTRAITS of a very superior description, at the above premises.
For the purpose of regulating the influences of the weather, and ensuring a correct and accurate likeness in any condition of the atmosphere, he has constructed a larger Glass Chamber, in which the unfavourable effects of rain, &c., are completely neutralized.
For the convenience of Ladies and others who may dislike the Public Room, Mr S.G. has private apartments suitably fitted up.
Small Sized Portraits 5s. 6d. Second size 8s. 6d. Fourth size 15s.
What a wonderfull ad'
Denn
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;D
What a great ad, Denn!
When I was getting the daguerreotype reference above, I read that the exposure time could be anything up to 30 minutes! :o :o :o and that was in full sunlight - imagine that on a summer's day in your crinolines and corsets/weskit and frock coat!!
Prue
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Horrific thought. remember that famous first picture that dagguerre took though the Paris window - I'm not absolutely sure but I believe it was around a six hour exposure time!!!!! What would old Louis think of our high speed cameras of today?
Denn
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You know some of those early photographers were great men (should I say people?) and very thought provoking - in a way they were leaders. My own favourite of course is Ansell Adams - probably some connection to my love of mountaineering and the bush!
Denn
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Denn,
Thanks for the link much more informative than the one I found!
Newbie
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Many thanks to all who replied especially Prue M, I clicked on your link, it is so interesting and Newbie for the cost and equivalent in todays terms.
It's strange to think I have a 'photo of my gt gt grandparents wedding in 1856 and yet my own mum & dad's from 1925 didn't come out!
And yes Romilly, thank goodness it's not Jones!
Pam
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Many thanks to all who replied especially Prue M, I clicked on your link, it is so interesting and Newbie for the cost and equivalent in todays terms.
It's strange to think I have a 'photo of my gt gt grandparents wedding in 1856 and yet my own mum & dad's from 1925 didn't come out!
And yes Romilly, thank goodness it's not Jones!
Pam
Hello Again,
I'll add my thanks for all that info to Pam's thanks too, (above).
By a funny coincidence Pam, I don't have any photos of my parents marriage either, (they married in 1946). In fact, I don't have a single photo of them together, but my father died in 1957, - before photography became a "mass" hobby I suppose. But I feel very lucky to have that one of my G/Grandparents, - on what was obviously a big day for them!
All Best Wishes, Romilly.