Sports Daguerrotypes and Ambrotypes
 

Anyone own one of either?

I've been slowly building a type set of sports photos, but don't have examples of either. I bought this daguerrotype at an antique store yesterday, just to have one in hand to study - I had never seen one before in person. Very cool little item. If you tilt it slightly it goes 'negative'. Looking these up on ebay, I wasn't able to find very many real ones - a lot of people apparently get them mixed up with tintypes and ambrotypes.

I think a lot of people on ebay who list their item as a Daguerreotype have never actually seen one. It's very easy to tell one apart from a tintype. I don't believe I've ever seen a sports oriented Dag other than the one reportedly to be Alexander Cartwright and fellow Knickerbockers...but is it really Cartwright???

Dags are unique and easy to identify in person, because they are mirror-like (reflect like a mirror) and the image changes as you change the angle. You can see the normal positive image on a tintype no matter what from what angle you look at it.

There are a few baseball ambrotypes out there.

Dags are kind of heavy, as they are photographs on copper plates. Ambros are constructed from two pieces of overlaid glass. Tintypes are photos on a thin piece of metal and are very light. Dags will create a mirror image, and tilted a certain way you can actually see your own reflection. You can't do this with an ambro or tintype.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of known sports related tintypes, but only a handful of baseball or cricket ambros. As far as dags go, there are none known that definitively picture baseball, although there are a few known of children holding balls.

And dags are by far the most beautiful photographic medium ever created. But they were difficult to make and rather expensive, so they eventually became obsolete.

This dag has some problems, but shows a child holding a ball.

That's a nice one Gary.

Also...be very careful with the image from a dag. They can be ruined very easily, even by just wiping them. You'll see many dags out there with wipe marks obliterating the image. Dags that are focused and that haven't been over or under exposed can be breathtaking, and very valuable. They can almost look 3-D.

Rob M.

Rob, thanks for that advice. Since I've never held one in hand before, I'm especially amazed by this one and was wondering how to protect it - it doesn't have the 'cover' side of the case. I had no idea as to value, but it was only $25 for an instant relative.

I was at an antique shop a few years ago that had 15-20 ambrotypes. Since I had never seen either an ambrotype or a dag, I didn't immediately know what I was looking at, other than they weren't tintypes. They were priced at $50-100, so I didn't purchase one. Now I need to figure out where I saw them so I can go back and look at them more closely. Nothing special - just pics of couples and individuals - but they were fun to look at.

As with all images, it's still all about the content but I have seen some fairly common looking dags that are worth quite a bit just because of the quality. You would know if you saw one because you stop and say "wow".

Be careful Scott, sounds like you might be catching a new collecting bug!

Rob M.

Definitely not a new collecting bug - I figured I was paying $25 for the privilege of taking it home and carefully studying it. It was cheap enough that I can save it as an example for future reference.

I think $25 is a great price for that. I've got a few Ambros, no sports content though.

With daguerreotypes the value is in the composition and the quality of the image. What one typically finds is a portrait of an unknown person. If the image is bold and clear, if the subject is young and attractive, and if it is nicely hand colored, it is very collectable. Even more valuable are images of buildings, outdoor scenes, gold miners, soldiers, men holding the tools of their trade, children with toys, dogs (rare because it was hard to get a dog to sit perfectly still for a full minute), or anything that has some aesthetic quality. Many of those are thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars.

Plate size is a factor too. Dags and ambros can be found in full plate (about the size of a book cover), half plate, quarter plate, sixth plate and ninth plate sizes, as well as some oddball ones too. Dags are also found embedded in gold jewelry. Most common are sixth plates. Larger plates, especially full ones, are worth a large premium.

well
 

I sold a great dag of a sheepdog on eBay to Graham Nash of Crosby Stills Nash and Young for around 1000.00. I have seen one sell in excess of 20,000.00. I have a small collection of dags and ambros featuring tobacco themes and a slightly larger collection of the cases they came in. Sealed and not cleaned is the preferred condition along with the photographer's attribution. Ambros were fragile short lived and never very popular. I missed out on a cigar roller ambro that went for 800. +. I've seen that girl and ball dag before and at least one other. I believe one day a BB dag will surface...........Just to note it is TOUGH to scan or digi pic a dag properly.

Henry- I'm not sure we will ever see a baseball dag. Dags fell out of favor in the late 1850's, and the number of baseball players who would have gone to a photographer then, much less in their baseball uniform, is slim and none. Nothing is impossible, but if you are saying we will find a dag with a man in uniform holding a bat and a ball, I will say it will never happen. But I hope I'm wrong.

I thought my scan came out pretty good, but it doesn't look near as good as the actual piece. The 'negative' version was done with a camera, and is pretty crappy.

What are your thoughts on the supposed Cartwright and Knickerbocker teammates dag?

Dan- I don't want to get into the controversy of it, but assuming that it does picture six Knickerbockers, there are still no bats, balls, or uniforms visible. I'm just referring to a garden variety baseball image that is commonly found in tintype or CdV form- not necessarily someone who can be identified, but a player in uniform holding equipment. I don't think we will ever find a dag like that. It's not impossible, just very remote.

I'm with you...I doubt one exists.

Baseball ambrotype

<a href="http://s69.photobucket.com/user/rman444/media/prewar/Baseball%20Photos/Ambrotypes/AandL09-3402.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/rman444/prewar/Baseball%20Photos/Ambrotypes/AandL09-3402.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo AandL09-3402.jpg"/></a>

That ambrotype is fantastic!

wowsa
 

and then some....

That is a rare beauty!

Rob M.

Wonderful photo...
J