The Glass Plate Negatives - part 9

This post is part of a series. To read previous posts go here.

The ebay seller who lives in the Bronx and sold the plate glass negatives to Paul Holbrook responded!

Here is the message Paul sent me:

"I heard from the seller! I told her about your project of researching the pictures, of course. She wrote: "Cool, I like these interesting research projects. I found them at an auction which had all sorts of random items. There were a lot more, at least 20 more boxes, but I did not get the rest of them as I was outbid. I believe the other buyer was also an eBay seller, so I would not be surprised if the rest of them pop up on eBay eventually He also has the original reference booklet they came with (which he bought from me, I just took a picture of the relevant pages for the photos I bought.) There's a chance I may run into him again at an auction. If so I will ask for his info so you can contact him."

And GUESS WHAT? She had a picture of the original box too! and now we know what kind of camera the pictures were taken with - a Kodak Eastman.

Picture courtesy of Paul Holbrook, used with permission.

The Kodak company produced a pocket camera in the 1890's and early 1900's that put cameras in the hands of average consumers. The camera used to capture the images in this series may have looked like this Eastman from 1909:

(Picture from Etsy, accessed at https://www.etsy.com/listing/602924159/rare-1909-antique-folding-pocket-kodak?ref=related-4)

One of the most exciting things the seller shared was pictures of the reference booklet for the images she purchased:

Picture courtesy of Paul Holbrook, used with permission.

My head was spinning! We had not only the original captions and descriptions of the photos (in the photographer's own handwriting!) but there was also an envelope that was part of the packet.

And it has the name of our family!!!! And the address where they lived! And it wasn't the Bronx!

Picture courtesy of Paul Holbrook, used with permission.

Ok, Mr. Gerrie L. Treadwell of 40 Center Street Bridgeport Connecticut, you are about to be researched like crazy! Woo-Hoo!

Go here to read the next post in this series.

#glassplatenegatives #historydetective