Last known picture of Abraham Lincoln

[Houmes]

(10-01-2014 12:12 PM)Gene C Wrote:  

(10-01-2014 11:42 AM)Warren Wrote:  Slight aside, and I apologize, but I'm seeing photos from the Meserve Collection showing up on that (in)famous internet auction site. They state that they were made directly from the negatives in the Meserve collection, and one even has the handwriting of Meserve on an envelope enclosing the photos. I truly believe these are real, and they seem to be from a reputable seller. But were there only a few that would have been made from the collection's negatives, or would they in actuality be quite common? I'm looking to add to my photo collection and want to get as many first generations as I can. Thanks, and sorry for the interrupt.

Just my opinion, but I am hesitant to buy anything of this nature off ebay, unless I know the seller is a reputable dealer of historical items.

Frederick Hill Meserve reprints are old, but not "old old." He didn't begin having his collection of Lincoln images produced or reproduced until after 1900, when he first bought some original Brady glass negatives as a lark, wandering into a New York auction gallery and acquiring a small bundle without even looking at them before bidding. He later bought original images, including the inventory (two truckloads) of the E. & H.T. Anthony photo studio in New York. He bought in bulk: 30,000 images of actors, collections and single images of every type of famous person, etc., etc., eventually over 200,000 images by 1944.

The Meserve prints with the handwritten envelope on Ebay are undoubtedly legit, but I view them as a novelty because they're not contemporary images. Vintage CDVs were made with an albumen emulsion between 1850-1890. Authentic Civil War images will have a revenue stamp on the back if made between 1864 to 1866, which served as a tax imposed by the federal government to pay for the war. Meserve had his images reproduced by a paid photographer, using later film. Meserve, as an experiment, even had two ambrotypes made, placed in old cases. One showed up in the collection of the Huntington Library and was documented as an original, contemporary image until Meserve called them out during a visit. Meserve was a giant in the Lincoln photo field, but his images should be valued in context.