Quote:
Originally Posted by Jobu
I have the following 3.25" x 4" glass slide of the 1896 Paterson Silk Weavers with Honus Wagner, but I am not quite sure what it is. My best guess is a Magic Lantern slide, but I know very little about them so it is really just a guess.
Thanks in advance.
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Actually have a small collection of baseball related Magic Lantern Slides (MLS), mostly from the mid-nineteen-teens. Got them from a photography collector who told me a little bit about them. One thing I learned was that period Magic Lantern Slides were professionally produced and mostly used for advertisement and entertainment purposes. And they often had the name of the advertiser, or whoever made or produced it, somewhere on the slide, either on the actual glass slide itself so the advertiser's name would be part of the projected image the viewers would see, or more so in the case of the slide's producer, printed somewhere on the paper border that covered the front and back edges of the slide. In the case of your item, I'm referring to what looks like a black border going all around your slide. I'm assuming that black border on your slide is covered in or made up of some kind of heavy paper or cardboard, correct? It doesn't look like there is any advertiser or producer's name showing on the glass slide itself, so what about on the border itself, is anything printed on either side of the surrounding border? If so, it might give you a lead to research for some further info on the slide.
From what I can see from your scans, there doesn't seem to be any printing on the borders at all though, and the borders themselves don't look to be very consistent or professionally added, like you would expect from a true, commercially produced, Magic Lantern Slide. I'm beginning to think this isn't a true, professionally produced Magic Lantern Slide, but instead maybe something created from a glass negative (called a positive) of an actual picture taken of the team? In other words, some non-professional trying to create their own homemade Magic Lantern Slide? The 1896 date is in the ballpark timewise for the process of using a glass negative to then create a glass positive, which could then have been used as a MLS. There were actually kits sold back then for people to personally create their own MLS. In using such kits they would have possibly used some border tape to go all around the edges of the glass positive, which is kind of what it looks like around the edges of your item, like it was wrapped in old electrician's tape. Look up images of Magic Lantern Slides online and you'll see what I mean about professionally produced MLS. They were meant to be used in a projection machine (like more modern slide projectors) and need to be a standard, uniform size. Something about your item doesn't quite seem to fit that mold. I am no photography expert, but am not so sure it is a true, professionally prepared Magic Lantern Slide from the period. Good question is if it was created from a true glass negative, what happened to the negative? Also, can you research and find a copy of this image or team picture anywhere to prove a glass negative once existed that pictures were actually printed or made from? If so, that could help to prove such a negative did in fact exist at one time from which this supposed MLS item you have was made. I find it a little hard to believe though that some amateur would have taken a team picture in 1896 to simply just create a MLS from. A logical reason for thinking a MLS for this would likely have been created some time after the original photo was taken, the question is, how long after? Assuming the image is legitimately created from an original 1896 photo negative, that is a great photo item including Wagner from his last year before joining the Pirates. Good luck with your research.