Knickerbocker Photo (Update)

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by molenick

In the pair on the left, I can honestly say that to my eye these two men do not resemble each other (and it seems to me the person on the left is older than the person on the right).

This is the image I find most troubling of the 6. The subject on the left also appears older to me than the subject on the right. There are however similarities with respect to a few facial features that line up well (shape of nose, where the brow meets the nose, the lines from nose to mouth, the highlight to the left of his nose just above that line, and possibly the oddly shaped receeding hairline). However, the overall dimensions of the skull don't quite line up to me as the subject on the left appears to have a slightly wider and shorter skull whereas his purported match on the right has a somewhat narrower and longer skull. But the level of detail in that 1862 photo is quite poor, particularly with respect to this guy. I don't see a reason to be anything other than agnostic on this particular pairing.

Originally Posted by molenick

However, in the three pairs stacked on top of each other, clearly the people on the right are older than the people on the left.

Yes, clearly these men are older, and not by just a few years. If these are indeed the same people, then these photos must have been taken at least 10 years apart, I would argue. If the salt print was definitively taken in 1862 and the stereoview image couldn't possibly have been taken prior to 1857 then this would be very problematic for me. However, there are a lot of 'ifs' in that statement. How solid is the 1862 date? How old could the stereoview possibly be? Is 1857 the floor? Is 1852 the floor? This is where I think the actual experts really add a lot of value to a conversation like this. Knowing the history of how these prints were made and when those techniques were invented and where, when, and how they were used. All of that knowledge is extremely useful here.

Where I roll my eyes though is when someone wants to extend that area of expertise in the history of photography to pretend that they are somehow better than someone else at determining whether or not two noses or ears have the same shape. Also, someone's track record with their claims of expertise matters as well. You can't say "there's no question whatsoever that this couldn't possibly have been made prior to the 1870s because those arches and mounting style. If you ask any expert on earth, every single one of them will say 1872-1875" or some such nonsense, only to have you proven wrong by multiple people posting images of their stereoviews dated a decade before that, and then to have a museum curator assign a date range to it that places it potentially upwards of 2 decades prior to that.