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From: "joseph gregory" <>
Subject: Tin Type
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 10:51:45 -0400


If Helen is asking about "Tin Type" photographs and not a specific photograph, the answer is that "Tin Types" exist all over the world. "Tin Type" referrs to coating a piece of tin with colloidion, an explosive compound made up of, if I remember correctly, gun cotton which a "type of celluloid nitrate used as an explosive" disolved in ethyl ether and perhaps silver nitrate. This compound was spread on a tin sheet and the sheet was inserted as the photographic plate in the camera without exposing it to light until the shutter was opened. Earlier photographs used glass plates which of course cracked if not handled carefully
Jos. Gregory
Mt. Top, Pa.

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