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[ Music ]
[ Diane Adams-Graf ] It's easy to
look at cased photographs and think
that all of the cases hold
the same types of photographs.
When in fact there are different
photographic types in cases.
Two of the very common image types
that they can hold are
daguerreotypes and tintypes.
There are a couple of ways
that you can identify the difference
between a daguerreotype and a tintype.
A daguerreotype will often
have a very mirror-like surface
that is highly reflective
and this can be a giveaway to that.
A tintype will be a little denser,
a little darker. We can take
a daguerreotype and look at
how it's constructed by taking
the case apart. The cover often had
a velvet lining on the inside as part
of the protection and decoration.
There would then be a piece
of cover glass to protect
the daguerreotype.
A mat which served two purposes:
One, a decorative frame for the image
and protect the daguerreotype
from any scratches.
The daguerreotype itself which
was the image captured
on the silver coated copper plate
and on this too, you can see
the paper preserver on the reverse
which would wrap around
the daguerreotype, cover the mat,
cover the glass and seal them
all together. This would then
be placed in the case.
With this particular image,
you can see that it doesn't have a mat
and it is not a daguerreotype.
If we were to take this out,
we could tell looking at the back
of it that it is a piece of iron,
tin dipped iron and is in fact
a tintype with the image affixed.
The daguerreotype is always
in a case. A tintype isn't necessarily
always in a case because it could
be multiple copies and made
on large sheets of tin dipped iron.
You could often find tintypes
without cases and it's a later process.
Cased images eventually became
a thing of the past with the advent
of the carte physique albumin prints
mounted to pressed paper which were
light weight, could be made
in as many as eight at a time
and quickly replaced both
the tintype and the daguerreotype.