(4) Antique Daguerreotypes in Original Leather Cases. One shows a girl by herself, one a brother and sister together, one a distinguished gentleman, and one is a husband and wife with a small picture of someone who may be their child separately tucked into the corner of the case. 

Largest Size: 7 1/4 x 3 3/4 x 1/2 in. 

Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photographic process, widely used during the 1840s and 1850s and so prevalent that the word “Daguerreotype” also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced worldwide in 1839, the daguerreotype was almost completely superseded by 1856 with new, less expensive processes, such as tintypes and ambrotypes (collodion process), that yield more readily viewable images. Historically minded photographers of subsequent generations, often fascinated by daguerreotypes, sometimes experimented with making their own or even revived the process commercially as a “retro” portraiture option for their clients. These eccentric late uses were extremely unusual and surviving examples reliably dated to between the 1860s and the 1960s are now exceedingly rare.

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