Custom Work on 100+ Yr Old Photo Developed from an Old Judge Glass Plate Negative

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

makes me wish I had though of paying someone to develop the glass plate negatives I had of Jack Johnson and Abe Attel!

For future reference it is quite easy. In the past you would either make a contact print; laying the negative on the paper then exposing and printing, or putting it in a holder, placing in an enlarger and making a larger print. With modern technology it is not that difficult anymore. A glass plate negative can be scanned on a pro model flat bed scanner like the Epson V850 or Expression 12000XL. It can be done at various resolutions (dpi's). Once you have the file (jpg) it can be printed on digital, preferably archival, paper. It can also be printed on traditional silver halide paper. One of my photo labs, Digital Silver Imaging in Belmont, MA can take a digital file and print it on regular photographic paper. They are not cheap, but the results are incredible. Interestingly, you can see the exposure of the clip that held the glass plate negative against the paper in Tanner's photo. It is the white mark in the lower left that looks like a collar stay.

Here are a few scans using my 12 year old Microtek pro scanner:

Magic Lantern slide of one of the heats for the 100m dash at the 1896 Olympics.

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Glass plate negative circa 1932. The man on the right, George Calnan, took the athletes oath at the opening ceremony of the 1932 Olympics. Winner of 3 bronze medals in fencing (1 in 1928, 2 in 1932). A lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, he died in the crash of the dirigible U.S.S. Akron off the coast of New Jersey in April 1933.

levis-calnan-100013.jpg