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Posted By: hankron

Acting preemtively, I state that an albumen print is identified by examining the print itself. If mounted or unmounted, mounted to a TV Guide or your neighbor's cat, the print itself is identified by looking at the print with a microscope.

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Even the original 1800s photograph studios knew that the albumen prints were so thin and fragile that they had to be, sooner rather than later, mounted. Most albumen prints were mounted on cardboard (ala cabinet cards), sometimes in books (picture books) and, as baseball fans know, sometimes on scorecards.

I don't know how Goodwin did it, what time frame existed from making of the print and attaching to mount (10 minutes, 1 hour, 14 days, more?). It is possible they mounted the photos right away. It is possible they had plain albumen prints stored in books and when the time came, they stuck them to the mounts. In other words, it was possible to store albumen prints in books for lenthy periods of time.

So your scenario is plausible. And if a genuine unmounted Cap Anson N173 albumen slips the pages of the musty book you pull from the libarary shelf, it could be authenticated as genuine and stuck in auction.