Posted By:
AmboGreetings,
I enjoy reading this forum.
I do not collect Baseball items but like to look at them.
I have practiced the Wet Plate Process of Photography for about six years and you may see some samples of my work by looking under the seller AMBRO on e-bay and looking at my "Me" page.
I can add the following facts on some of the comments about this Process in this thread.
"This type of 'in the image writting' could not be done on a tintype. A tintype is a primitive and completely different process than with the Old Judge paper photos. There is no glass negative involved and you can't put writing into the image-- unless you're photographing a book or such".
A Paper Photograph Printed with the negative reversed(thus the letters would appear reversed in the print) could be used to produce a Tintype copy with the writting in the proper Direction,a Tintypist of the day(or today!) would know this was required of a copy print.
"It makes no sense that Goodwin & Co. would make a proof tintype or any sort of tintype. The tintype process could only produce one photo."
With a multi lens camera it was possiable to produce many similar images at once, of course the more images the smaller the size of each image.
"The tintype is a primitive process-- the same kind used to make the first
photo in 1839."
The Daguerrotype,that was introduced to America in 1839 is an image on a Copper plate with a thin coating of Silver that is fumed by various chemicals and developed by Mercury Vapors. The Wet Plate Process from which Ambrotypes(Glass Plates) and Tintypes(Iron Plates) were made is completly different.
It uses Silver Nitrate in solution in conjuction with Salted Collodion to produce a light sensitive surface.
"Second generation tintypes also have a loss of focus"
A poorly executed copy will be out of focus,however with a very sharp lens(and they had some fine ones!) it was easy to make a copy image that is every bit as sharp as the original,so much so that it can be hard to tell each of them apart.It was also possiable to leave out all traces of the edges of the Image being copied.
I would add that there has been a resurgence of the Wet Plate Process in the last 10 years,from less than twenty persons worldwide doing the old process to many hundreds today. So it goes without saying that the number of Fake Ambrotypes and Tintypes is going to increase in the future.
Hope that info helps.
Tim Parson
Ambrotypist