Quote:
Originally Posted by Butch7999
Most interesting find regarding the first two pics -- the eBay vendor's are allegedly glass plates, so, knowing next to nothing
about that aspect of early photography, we're confused as to how they could be in the LoC and also in the vendor's hands.
Aren't glass plates one-of-a-kind?
Still hoping others will chime in with player and stadia IDs...
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I read through the eBay vendor's comments in that thread, and my guess is that he's either mistaken or doesn't know what he's talking about (perhaps a bit of both). 3/4 of the original glass plates are in the LoC, and have been since 1955, so there is no possible way that the guy's grandfather has the actual original glass plate negatives. It's possible that his gramps has prints
made from the original negatives, likely by way of the large digital images that the LoC has posted on their website. There are probably a dozen eBay sellers who would sell you something similar, with varying results depending on their printing method, but all coming from the same scans of the originals. If that's the case, then I would guess that the guy is using terminology or phrasing that sounds accurate to him, but because he is inexperienced with photography, conveys a different (impossible) scenario than he intended. Another possibility would be that gramps actually has some glass plate negatives, and seeing these prints in his collection, the gentleman wrongly assumed they were made from the negatives he saw. If that's the case, the original negatives may prove far more interesting than the modern prints.
Mind you there's a lot of conjecture in either scenario, but as you surmised, unless gramps looted the LoC archives, you can rest assured that the original negatives remain there.
Kudos to Don for hunting down IDs for 4/4 of them, and bonus points for finding the originals!
