Greg French
                    
                            Early Photography

       
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Past Sales Below
MATTHEW R. ISENBURG COLLECTION

 
Ambrotype with Diary & Period Note
Diamond Springs California Gold Mining Settlement.

Diary. “... I am now at diamond Springs to work in the mines forty five miles from Sacramento. I have ben here almost two weeks. I have found some gold. I have made from two to six dollars a day while I have ben here .... Supose you would like to know what kind of a place this is here. I can tell you this is a hard place. There is a great many folks here that wood be glad to go home if they could and they could after a while if they would save their money but there is a gambling house close by here. I have ben in there and see men loose the last cent they had and I have seen some win 40 and 50 dollars on a few minutes and then go off and got drunk and come back and loose it all again and some will work all day and spend it nights. That is the way with one half of the folks in Calafornia. I should never expect to get home at that rate....... William Pitt... Diamond Springs Callafornia.” 
The period note says “Calif. Large Building, gambling house. William Pitt’s house where men stand.” One can see the gambling house over to the left, and William Pitt’s house to the right.
california ambrotype

Postmortem of an infant from above.
White on White
Daguerreotype
Blue Sky
Illuminated
Daguerreotype
Civil War Sergeant
with Pistol and Sword .
Cased Tintype

Amherst College Class of 1864 
CDV Album 
Cabinet Photograph of a Dentist
advertising his services.
His crown, sash, and cuffs
are covered with various dental
implements and tools.

Lincoln Sign
Painter
Carte De Visite
King of Siam
Antique
Photograph
Harriet Tubman
Cabinet Card
Photograph

Matilda Gage and her daughter, Helen. 
Gage was a suffragist, activist, aboltionist, 
author and freethinker. She was also the 
mother-in-law of L. Frank Baum, 
author of the Wizard of Oz. 
 Daguerreotype 
Blacksmith 
 Daguerreotype 
2 cricket players, 
one with a ‘Field Captain’ belt. 
Also featured are the bat, ball and wickets. 
 Quarter Plate Ambrotype 


Actors in Blackface CDV Collection   by James Wallace Black

 
 
 
Canadian daguerreotype of a volunteer fireman 
by Henry K. Sheldon. 
Identifying inscription on inside of case: 
"Mr. Joel Shiels. Kingston. May 24th 1856. Sheldon Artist."

Daguerreotype of
Major Emin Bey, 
of the Ottoman Empire Navy,
sent to the U.S. in 1850 as a Turkish envoy.


Highly unusual pair of crisp quarter plate sized INDUSTRIAL SCENE DAGUERREOTYPES.
Note that this is the Industrial Revolution in a rural setting.
 
      

Prisoners
Many identified, including women, from Sacramento, California.
Large lot of albumen photographs dating as early as 1860s.
 
Prisoners
Antique Photos

Half plate tinted daguerreotype
of gold miners. In between the
tinted miners, in the background,
somebody raises a fist in triumph.
Quarter plate daguerreotype
of 3 Gold Miners exhibiting

camaraderie in an artful pose.
Gold mining scene
featuring 6 miners.
Half plate Daguerreotype

Tintype
of
Sleeping
  Photographer   
8 men at Sikes Store
Eden, New York
  Daguerreotype  

Earliest Known Pictures of the Ku Klux Klan
Pair of Cartes de Visite (CDVs) feature earliest known photographs of the Ku Klux Klan (1867 & 1871). 
Period ink, on reverse of each, describes law enforcement's role in apprehending them.

Indiginous People
of the 
South Pacific
4 Cartes De Visite

President Lincoln’s Inauguration
Stereoview

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