A tiny photo album, with even tinier tintype portraits.
Tintypes: oddities in the family album
Many older family photo albums and collections of family snapshots contain mysterious little pictures printed on thin plates of metal. These "tintypes" - also sometimes called ferrotypes - were a relatively common means of producing quick and cheap portraits in years long gone by. Tintypes were direct positives produced on thin sheets of enamelled or lacquered metal coated with photosensitive emulsion. Tintype of a small girl, circa late 1800s. Tintypes reached their peak in the 1870s and were extremely popular with travelling photographers because they could be developed and fixed within minutes. Tintype of two children,…