Vintage Photographic Images Hold A Vast Amount of Information

OLD PHOTOGRAPHS DON'T LIE - IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR TRUTH, VINTAGE IMAGES HOLD A VAST AMOUNT OF INFORMATION

THE PHOTOGRAPHS THAT CAN PROVE HISTORIANS WRONG - THEY'RE WORTH A LOT TO FOLKS LIKE US, TRYING TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

     Old photographs are still the best bargain in the enterprise of antique hunting. Many dealers will keep a small stock of old family photos torn from albums, which are often sold separately, in their shops or antique mall booths. Generally, they help bring the price of all the photos down, by association. It's common knowledge they don't sell well, and there are a million images out there, especially from the Victorian era. Unless they can be identified and localized, they're not worth much money at all. Putting some better images in with the commons, as they are referred, tends to repel a lot of browsers, in too much of a hurry to spend the twenty minutes to a half hour, looking through the hundred or so cards in the box. They are most often unidentified and prices range from three dollars to five or six, depending on the size and content. I will take the time to go through the images, but not for any significant antique value, because the reason they're in these bins, in large volume, is due to the fact someone already took the good stuff out. Instead, I study the photographs for historical relevance, and any information posted on the backs, and every now and again, I find a gem that everyone else, including a lot of antique speculators, missed in their quick scans through the piles. What I'm looking for is well beyond the obvious, and the most significant images have a connectedness to historical events, such as the American Civil War, and anything with early representations of steam trains and railway lines, and of course the peoples of the First Nations, which can be very valuable. Getting a regional photograph for example, of a steam locomotive crossing a trestle bridge, pulling passenger cars, with identifiable background buildings or landmarks, is always a winner if you're interested in historical prominence and investment photographs; because you will be happy at the way the five bucks invested, becomes a thirty or fifty dollar image based on content. It does take a pretty weighty historical background to spot these photographs, and this a cross over, where antique valuations and heritage relevance can reach for the top, you might say, depending on subject matter. In other words, the dealer knows that by content, a vintage photograph can sell for a large amount of money, such as, for example, images of Muskoka steamships from a bygone era. The historian, who isn't interested in flipping the image for a quick profit, is at a disadvantage in this case, because dealers generally have more money to invest initially, knowing they will be getting the money back, plus a dividend; whereas, the historian will wait for years before selling it, if they sell it ever. I have an advantage in that I play for both teams.
     A colleague in the history gathering profession, told me, in front of colleagues, that I was wrong to state that Bracebridge Artist, and Barber, William Anderson, had a former shop in the corner of the former Patterson Hotel on Manitoba Street, at the intersection with Thomas Street. The clock tower of the old federal building is situated on the south corner, and the hotel is on the east side, north corner. It was formerly known in antiquity as the Queen's Hotel, and the hill it is built upon, the Queen's Hill.
     I was aghast, and it seemed he was grandstanding to make me look bad, in front of my peers, for whatever reason. I had written numerous published feature stories about the former Anderson Barber Shop, and part-time art studio, with my own recollections of getting my hair cut there twice a month, on Saturday mornings, either before my hockey games or immediately after. This is where I watched Bill painting his wonderful landscapes, set up in a corner of the shop, making a cup of tea, and then returning to cut my hair for another few moments, until inspiration struck, and he again picked up a brush, mixed some oil paints, and added more detail to a Muskoka River cataract, or the leaves of an autumn forest.
     For a few seconds, I was dumbfounded by his statement, and my open mouth showed that very clearly. The others in attendance weren't sure about it, but figured I was most likely wrong in my assertion. This happens a lot, because I'm usually up to my ears in historical debates, debunking someone else who has mistakenly committed an error in identification. I assured my colleagues that I wasn't mistaken about this, and knew where I had sat in the Patterson Hotel complex, to get my haircut. I was a little insulted having to make this defense of my honor. I left our casual meeting vowing to find evidence to validate my side of the story.
     It took a little time, because there weren't a lot of old photographs from the mid 1960's, taken of the old hotel, looking up the Queen's Hill toward the Carnegie Library. I asked my school chum, Ross Smith, whose uncle Fenton Patterson had owned the property back in that vintage, and he confirmed it for me. It was also confirmed as having been in the location I stated, when a new building owner, only a few years ago, told me about finding small paintings by Bill Anderson in a cubby hole in that part of the building being renovated, with other obvious paint marks left by the highly skilled artist, and proficient barber. I have since seen photographs to confirm this as well. It was of critical importance that I clarify this historical fact, because of all the writing I've done about Bill over the years. It would have been a real set-back for me, if I had been wrong about location. Vintage photographs, when observations from oldtimers aren't forthcoming, are of great importance in setting the record straight, when it comes to disputed locations and just about everything else historians like to debate as being incorrect. So if I seem overly aggressive about the worth of old photos, to confirm historical assertions, it's because I've found myself in similar situations of dispute over facts, and been able to recall vintage images that don't like about these things. No, they weren't doctored, or photo shopped. They are honest, trustworthy depictions, and keep historians honest, when occasionally they go off script, and begin re-writing heritage to suit the information they have available at the time.
     I had to move an old upright tool chest, last evening, owned and used, once upon a time, by my father-in-law Norman Stripp, of Windermere, one of the region's well known wooden boat restorers. When he passed away a number of years ago, and we had to clear out the family homestead, and workshop, not to mention the Stripp cottage on Lake Rosseau, we came upon a lot of keepsake pieces like the tool chest, where Norman had kept his best woodworking tools, used on restoration projects, on some of the finest wooden boats in the district, including Ditchburns, and the well known family owned launch, the Shirl-Evon, one of the biggest of the Ditchburn line of watercraft, made here in Gravenhurst. It was presented to son Andrew, who has followed closest in his grandfather's footsteps. Instead of working on old boats, Andrew repairs vintage guitars and other stringed instruments. I digress, as usual. As Andrew has no place to store the big, side-loading wooden box, (and it happened to be empty of its tools when I needed storage in an emergency), I found a use for it, in the meantime. Yup, it was full of old photographs that I'd forgotten I owned. I'm like the absent minded professor, except I'm a hobby archivist with a crappy sense of recall. I'm good in most ways of conservation, but I tend to forget where I put material away for safe keeping. No box, suitcase, drawer or case in our house, gets away with having a little extra room within, because I have needs, you see; lots of space required to house thousands of pieces of old and collectable paper, and of course vintage photographs. Last night, when I decided to move the neat tool cabinet, to another room, where it was more urgently needed, I happened to open the lid which exposed about five hundred photographs that I haven't seen in two years; but was looking for in every other cabinet and dresser drawer in the house. I don't lose archives materials, but I do lose track of them from time to time, which always makes it frustrating when I'm working on a project like this, and can't find the photographs or ephemera that I know will reinforce a story-line I've been working, on for this blog or other publications.
     I had an associate historian contact me before Christmas, to beg help finding some supporting images for a book he was writing, and I was entirely agreeable, knowing exactly where I had stored them for safekeeping. He had ten requests, and I knew for sure, I could fill eight easily, and most likely all ten, considering they would be relatively easy to locate, once I got home that evening. Cripes, I tore three banks of my archives apart, trying to find them for the gentleman, who needed them immediately. I didn't find even one of the items he had requested, and I had to offer a sincere apology, for misplacing them at the worse possible time. I don't think he believed me, and I'm sorry about this, because most historians depend on this sharing back and forth; and if I needed something from his collection, would he also claim to be unable to find the stash of what I required? Well, when I opened some of the drawers in the old tool chest last night, there were eight of the ten images requested, tucked securely in two tidy, moisture free compartments. I was forgetting where I put things thirty years ago, so it's nothing particularly new, to have to freak out a little, before my scattered archives collection, reveals what I'm searching for, at that moment. I just make the mistake of volunteering the materials as a next-day service, and that's the problem in a nutshell. It's not so much the result of memory loss, or old age, but the fact I have a very large collection of archives material, particularly photographs and negatives, and because of the volume, and the fact we live in a small house, I have to be particularly resourceful, about where I store them with security in mind.
     Published above, are three images found in the old tool chest, one being a family portrait taken by a Gravenhurst photographer, by the name of H.W. Callichan, presumably from the decade of the 1890's. The individuals are unnamed. The second photograph is of a group of workers, also unidentified, as well as their place of employment, although it is most likely a Bracebridge image from the late 1800's. The third photograph, definitely not taken in Muskoka, shows a group of three men, who may have resided locally, standing on the high ridge above a sprawling valley and waterway, with train tracks visible on the bottom right corner. None of the three photographs are properly identified, as to who is pictured, and there are no locations noted on any of them. Still, I would rather own them, than not, even if they don't have any useable provenance, to research them properly. Occasionally, I will get an email from one of my readers, who recognizes the background of an old photograph, or someone they know, or recognize as a family member, making the exercise of re-photographing them, and republishing the images online, a more prosperous endeavour. Using media opportunities to gather information on these old unidentified images works about twenty percent of the time, if we're lucky, and because most are purchased as a lot, having one image identified can have implications on all the others in that particular collection; and give us a place in which to start a more active regimen of research. We'd love to identify them all but that is impossible, considering the passage of time, and the fact many of the families that lived here in Victorian times, may have only left tombstones behind, and no other kin folk to help identify these wonderful old photographs. When you have an old building in the photograph, and can have it identified, either by other reference material, such as Muskoka histories, there is a good chance of getting others in the same grouping localized; and that can set off a whole new round of investigation.
     Over the week, I want to offer some of the other interesting regional images I found in the old tool box, just in case you might be able to help us out, by identifying the people shown, and the backgrounds which would be of enormous assistance. I hate it when we have a brilliant photograph that could tell a great story, muzzled, because we are missing even the most minute details, especially of photographer, studio, and locale.
     Take care of your own family photographs, and for gosh sakes, make a plan to identify them for the benefit of future generations, and, well, historians like me, who will inevitably one day, own them whether you like it or not. As an antique dealer, I have purchased many photo and letter collections from possessors, who got them indirectly from estates, where the last line of he family had passed on, and no other person connected wanted the excess baggage of old photographs and correspondence. Yup, that's where we come in to save the history they inherently possess. Call us scroungers if you like, but we have saved a lot of regional and Canadian history, but stopping this material from being thrown own or recycled, as trillions of pieces have been over the centuries.