Dating An Old UK Photo .....

[steiner]

Hi

Very interesting link and comments.

I have two old photographs of carte visit size - but they are metal. Anyone any ideas on age?

thanks

[Currie]

Hello Steiner,

They sound like tintypes which means you can probably narrow them down to between the 1850s and WW2. It seems that you usually have to rely on clues in the photograph, such as dress, to work out a date.

They are coated in a varnish or something that sometimes goes very dark making the photo very hard to see. I’ve only fiddled with a few, two from the 1890s that came up really well and one of a WW2 RA*F airman that didn’t.

There’s some info about them here. http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/tintype.htm

A search in Google images for tintype brings up this lot hopefully most of which are tintypes. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&l ... a=N&tab=wi

Hope that helps a bit,
Alan

[steiner]

Yes, thanks Alan.

I always thought tintypes were very early but as you say they lasted well into the 20th century. In that case, the dates are probably around 1870 - 1885, if my guess about the subjects is right.