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Posted By: Rhys

That is a beautiful image on the cabinet, but it looks really weird. I have never seen a cabinet photo from that era which shows that much pronounced wear on the corners of the photo portion without extensive wear to the cabinet itself that was 100% authentic. It almost looks like a Real Photo Postcard that was stuck on there (either vintage or later). It is a beautiful piece, but just looks odd in its construction to me. Maybe the mount has more wear that was cropped out or something.

Usually embossed framed cabinet photos are recessed inside the border so that in order for wear to show up on the photo portion there would be extensive wear to the raised frame portion which is not present in that piece. If that sounded confusing, it means that the little framed line around the photo is always raised higher than the photo so that there is almost never wear on the picture unless there is wear on the raised part. The only time I have seen this type of wear pattern is when people glued Real Photo Postcards to cabinets. This happens because the Postcard is several times thicker than a traditional photo from the era and would then be raised higher than the frame portion and receive the brunt of wear as opposed to the raised frame.

It is impossible to say anything for sure without seeing it in person, but my guess would be this is a Real Photo Postcard which was glued to a cabinet either in 1909 or later.

I do not think it really matters as far as value goes, but it is a an interesting piece in several aspects.