An illustrated guide to identifying historic photographs

About ten years ago I bought a small daguerreotype in its case from an online shop.

Except, when it arrived, it was not a daguerreotype, but rather a tintype. I probably could have complained to the seller for misrepresentation, but I didn’t know the difference myself.

Not until years later did I decide it was time to start educating myself on the historic processes and the artists who used them — the ones who came before. I was embarrassed that as a practitioner of the art of photography, I was so unaware of its history.

Since its inception in the 1820s, photography has always been a rapidly evolving practice. One process after another has followed in the long parade leading to the digital medium most of us practice today.

Needless to say, I can now tell the difference between a daguerreotype and a tintype.

In this article, I’ll give you some sure-fire ways to identify a daguerreotype, and I’ll also show examples of some of the other historic processes of the 1800s, and where they fit in the timeline of photo history.

Daguerreotypes: 1840s — 1860.

Daguerreotypes were the first commercially viable photographic process, invented by Louis Daguerre in France in 1839. They were popular from the 1840s until about 1860 when easier and more affordable processes became popular. I’ve read that three million daguerreotypes were made in the year following its invention.

Mirror with a memory

Daguerreotypes have been called a mirror with a memory. They are easily distinguished from ambrotypes and tintypes (ferrotypes) because they were printed onto a highly reflective surface in which the photographic image can only be seen properly from certain angles.

A daguerreotype was printed onto a sheet of silver-plated copper that had been burnished and polished laboriously with a list of different materials until a high-mirror sheen was achieved and all dust or imperfections were removed.

The plate was next washed with nitric acid to make extra sure the surface was free of all organic debris (like those annoying tiny pieces of fuzz that have plagued darkrooms since the beginning), making it ready for the light-sensitive coating. The coating was fumed onto the plate by placing it face down over a vaporous chemical like silver halide.

The sensitized plate was then inserted carefully into a plate holder with a dark slide, carried to the camera, where an exposure ranging from a few seconds up to a few minutes was made. The dark slide was slipped back into place, and the plate holder returned to the darkroom. Inside the darkroom, the exposed plate containing a latent image was again placed into the fuming box, where it was fumed with — are you ready for this — vapors of heated mercury. Not the safest of processes!

Development had to be stopped using a chemical solution of sodium thiosulfate, which is still often used in modern darkrooms. Then to make the image a little more durable, it could be fixed with a solution of gold chloride — a process called “gilding” — which gave the photo a warm tone and made the image somewhat more durable. It’s been said that without this gilding process, the surface was like the dust on a butterfly wing, and could be easily brushed off with a careless swipe of a finger.

Even with gilding, daguerreotypes are still delicate, hence the importance of protective cases.

Ambrotypes: 1850s — 1860s

As you can already see, daguerreotypes were difficult, laborious, and expensive to make. By the mid-1850s, ambrotypes were becoming popular.

Ambrotypes were a type of wet plate collodion process where the positive was imaged onto the back of a sheet of glass, then adhered to a black backing, which created contrast with the silvery highlights. The black backing became the blacks in the photograph. They were sold in decorative cases just like daguerreotypes. Not only were ambrotypes easier and more affordable to make than daguerreotypes, but they also removed the mirror effect, which many customers found bothersome.

Tintypes (ferrotypes): 1860s — 1870s & Beyond

Tintypes — also called ferrotypes — were wet plate collodion prints exposed onto the surface of a thin sheet of iron, not tin. The iron was prepared with a coating of black lacquer prior to the application of the wet collodion emulsion.

Tintypes began gaining popularity in the 1860s, largely due to the American Civil War. Families wanted pictures of their boys going off to war. Soldiers wanted portraits of their sweethearts. They were affordable to make, and unlike daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, tintypes were rugged and durable.

They were so durable in fact, that although they were often sold in cases like the one at the top of this story, they were also sold in simple paper sleeves like the one below.

Here’s the mind-bending part about tintypes; they are not positives at all, but rather they’re negatives. The highlights are just the very lightest parts of the negative, which appear light against the black lacquer. Notice that there are no real whites in tintypes.

One commonality between daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes — they were all reversed. Everything you see in the image is opposite or flipped from the way it actually looked.

And, like daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, the tintype plate was a unique original photograph. In other words, the only photograph was the one made in the camera. There was no negative, so reproductions were not possible.

That changed in the 1850s with the carte de visite or CdV.

Carte de Visite (CdV): 1850s — early-1870s

CdVs were printed with the new wet plate collodion negative process. Because there was a glass negative, endless reproductions could be made. This represented a monumental shift in the way photographs were made.

CdVs were small prints on albumen paper, about 3.5 x 2 inches pasted onto backing mounts, which were about 4 x 2.5 inches.

The process was invented in 1854 and was so affordable that very quickly it became a rage, creating a trend coined “cardomania”(Wikipedia). They were produced in the millions through the early 1870s.

Like tintypes, the popularity of CdVs was also boosted by the Civil War in the 1860s. Their small, light size made them easy to send by mail.

Another innovation of the CdV era was the printing of the photographer’s mark on the backside. This helps collectors with dating the photograph and makes it foolproof to identify the photographer.

Cabinet Cards: 1870s — 1890s

In the 1870s, CdVs were supplanted by a larger version of the same concept, called the cabinet card. Cabinet cards were photographs printed on albumen paper, mounted on card stock. The larger mounting card made room for a generous amount of graphics on the back, but often included the photographer’s name or logo on the front as well.

Albumen prints were prepared with a glossy emulsion that contained egg whites. The gloss gave them a vividness and clarity not achieved by other types of contemporary prints like salt prints. But, ironically, thanks to their shiny surface, albumen prints gained a reputation of being garish or vulgar to Victorian tastes.

Coloration of albumen prints tends to be warm in highlights and deep brown to reddish-brown in image areas. In his book, The History, Technique and Structure of Albumen Prints, James M. Reilly said, “Unfortunately, albumen prints as a group merit the urgent concern and attention of conservators. Very few survive in original condition. Approximately 85% of extant albumen prints suffer from the presence of a yellowish-brown stain in the highlights (non-image areas), and almost as many exhibit overall image fading, with an accompanying shift in image color from purple or purplish-brown to a sickly yellowish-brown.”

Gelatin silver: 1871 — present

Although the gelatin silver process was invented in the 1870s, it took years of improvements before it was really ready to explode onto the mass market. A baryta coating was introduced in the 1890s — a big step forward in quality.

In 1900, Kodak adopted the baryta paper coating and released the first Brownie camera — the beginnings of a revolution. Gelatin silver remained the standard of black and white photography throughout the 20th century.

Sources and links

Barger, M. Susan and White, William B. The Daguerreotype: Nineteenth Century Technology and Modern Science. 1991. https://amzn.to/3wtm1y1 (Amazon Affiliate link)

Cycleback, David Rudd. Center for Artifact Studies, Photograph Identification Guide, “Tintypes, Daguerreotypes, and Ambrotypes.” http://www.cycleback.com/photoguide/dags.html

Library of Congress, “Ambrotypes and Tintypes”. https://www.loc.gov/static/collections/liljenquist-civil-war-photographs/articles-and-essays/ambrotypes-and-tintypes/

Reilly, James M. The History, Technique and Structure of Albumen Prints. 1980. pp.93–98. Accessed online at https://cool.culturalheritage.org/albumen/library/c20/reilly1980.html

Skinner, “How to Identify a Daguerreotype: 5 Considerations When Looking at Early Photography” https://www.skinnerinc.com/news/blog/how-to-identify-a-daguerreotype-early-photography/

The Gem & Carte de Visite Tintype

Wikipedia, “Albumen print.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albumen_print

Wikipedia. “Carte de visite.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_de_visite.

Wikipedia. “Gelatin silver process.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin_silver_process

York Daily Record, “York residents flocked to local photographers during the Civil War,” Scott Mingus, January 21, 2015. https://yorkblog.com/cannonball/york-residents-flocked-to-local-photographers-during-the-civil-war/

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