Thomas Lincoln

[Steve]

Lynch's article mentioned one of the experts he consulted felt the photo of the man couldn't have been reversed (and thus not a daguerreotype but an ambrotype - which wasn't invented until 1854) making it impossible for the man in the photo to be Thomas Lincoln. I checked a big photo book of daguerreotypes that I have and most (but not all) of the photographs of men's vests and jackets are buttoned the opposite way of the man in the photo. I also went to Ebay and searched for daguerreotypes for sale. I searched the first 5 pages of results and almost all of the men's jackets and vests that were on those pages, that I could see clearly, were buttoned in the opposite direction of the man in the photograph.

So, it doesn't seem like a definitive clue in determining what type of photograph the copy was made from since, apparently, some tailors didn't follow a set style of men's buttoning. But it seems a lot more probable that the original photograph was an ambrotype not a daguerreotype.