COLLECTING WESTERN PHOTOGRAPHY
Two collectors sat together and hashed over their recent acquisitions. After much sharing of mutual interests, one of them turned to the other and said, 'you know what? The closer a particular collectible item comes to the person, the better you seem to like it".
For the collector of Western photography, a better statement cannot be made. What is more intimate and close to the person than a photograph? It not only registers what a man or woman has but often is a mirror of what they were.
Frankly, I prefer the title 'Collector of Photographic Documentation'. Collectors are amassing some of the finest firsthand documents concerned with the country's western expansion. Add to this the basic human desire to collect and a love of history and you are essentially a 'collector of American Western documentation'.
Nothing reflects the true image of the Old West more reliably than photographs taken during that period in our history. It is true that the photography equipment was crude, the conditions were harsh, and many of the photographs were staged. Nevertheless, early Western photography is our most accurate and personal record of that era.
Photography is the finest medium ever invented for recording what the people of an era looked like, what they wore, what kind of weapons and tools they used, and the type of buildings they lived and worked in. Every photograph is in its own special way unique and individual. Collections of photographs from the American West are among the most valued first hand documents of this country’s historical past.
Keep in mind that all Western photography is indeed rare. Most of this photography was produced in paper mediums (carte-de-visite, studio cabinet cards, etc.) and a lesser amount in tintypes, ambrotypes, and daguerreotypes. While thousands were taken, the survival rate has always been quite low.
Although photography was taken in the West in daguerrian mediums as early as the 1840’s, the most popular types, other than personalities and goldmining, are those of cowboys, scouts, and trappers who came later.
Most cowboy photographs were staged and posed. In the days of the Old West, cowboys had their photographs taken in town after the long, dusty trail drives. They washed off the trail dust and dirt of the past months and changed into new clothing. However, if the cowboy could not afford a new outfit, the photographer supplied him with clothing for the photograph. This readily explains the crispness of the clothing in most cowboy photography. Quite obviously, no self-respecting cowboy wanted to send a photograph home to his sweetheart or family showing him dirty and haggard from the trail drives.
By the 1870’s, the law in the West strictly prohibited the wearing of firearms into any of the most famous cowtowns such as Dodge, Tombstone, Hays etc. Those who believe otherwise have often been misled by the various movie myths. The photographer provided cowboys with handguns, holster rigs, rifles and shotguns for posing. These guns, used as props, vary from old flintlocks to the most modern cartridge arms of the particular era. In other words, whatever was handy at the moment was used in the photograph. The cowboy wanted a gun somewhere in evidence to complete the impression of a well-equipped man of the range. For the collector, the addition of various types of weapons adds to the value of the photograph.
One of the most prominent aspects of Western cowboy photography is the age of the men in the photographs. Inexperienced peeple have stated these could not possibly be photographs of 'real' cowboys because the men portrayed are simply too young. This is untrue. The average age of cowboys in the 1868-1900 period was 18-21 years old. They rarely continued in the trade past their thirties due to the tremendous hardships inherent in their profession. In this early period of our country, men came of age at thirteen to fourteen years old. Consequently, the shy teenager, stiffly standing in front of the camera, was in all honesty indeed a real working cowboy.
Cowboy images have frequently been misunderstood. Posed but unstaged photographs are rarer than posed and staged views. Certain candid outdoor views are the rarest types. However, this aspect does not readily affect the value of any individual photograph. Most of the favorite collectable photographs are the posed and staged studio cabinet cards and tintypes. These command the best money. They frankly have the most pizzaz for the bucks and always have.
These photographs are a valuable source of information about the dress, arms, leather, general ages, and life styles of the American cowboy. In this regard, it does not matter to the experienced collector whether the photograph is staged or not. The photographs are staged with the equipment, arms and clothing of the particular era and the historical significance of these valuable insights is the most important value judgement.
Images of this type were taken literally all over the West. Photographer’s marks impressed on the cardboard mounting of the carte-de-visites and studio cabinet cards cover most of the Western states. With some diligence, one may hope to accumulate quite a collection of cowboy images in these mediums. Some of these were taken by such notables as Curtis, Huffman, Kirkland, Burge, Fly, and Chamberlain. Others were taken by itinerant photographers with nothing but a sheet for a backdrop and similar views can be found concerning the early Western scouts, trappers, and frontiersmen of the era.
The most popular example of this type show men dressed in buckskin clothing. These images may be unidentified mountainmen, trappers, scouts, or just men on a lark. They can even be cowboys who happen to prefer the fancier buckskin outfits more than the usual clothing of their trade. However, one also finds such famous figures as Kit Carson, Captain Jack Crawford, Texas Jack Omohundro, Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, among others. This type of photography has real eye appeal. Historically, such pictures furnish us with excellent examples of the type of buckskin outfit worn during a particular period. These images can be found in various photographic mediums from the 1840’s to the 1900’s. However, they should be considered extremely rare in the earlier mediums.
There are all kinds of buckskin dress. There is the simplified clothing of the early trapper with very little frills. There is the fancier buckskin outfit of the military scouts and the mountainmen with long fringe and Indian beadwork. Finally there are the super fancy buckskin outfits of the great showmen such as Buffalo Bill Cody and Captain Jack Crawford. These outfits were designed for the ultimate in showmanship and not for any practical value. Some of these types show men in elaborate, long fringe, ornamented American Indian bead work costumes and wearing fur collars and cuffs and exotic animal skins. How people must have stared when someone such as Bill Cody rode into the ring in one of these fantastic Outfits!
More than just the outfits themselves, these photographs usually have other attractions for the collector. One encounters such things as beautiful, silver mounted flintlocks and percussion rifles, fancy stocked and engraved Winchesters, ivory and pearl handled Colts of all models, fancy holster rigs, and the fanciest of headgear. A few early Views even show examples of the traps used by early trappers as well as many other tools of his trade. More spectacular than any of these, perhaps, are the views showing the buckskinners with live animals. One daguerreotype of note shows a heavily bearded old mountainman with his pet bird sitting on his shoulder! Others exhibit show men with such famous American Indians as Sitting Bull and Geronimo.
Values have increased tremendously over the years since the 1970s when I first wrote some of this article. Their price ranges, therefore, can begin as low as fifty dollars each and as high as the high thousands (recently one reached 1.2 million and others in the 100 thousand range). In this area of Western photography collecting, the value is based solely on how much the highest bidder will pay for the privilege of owning a particular photograph.
Though personalities, cowboys, and buckskinners, are the most popular subjects in the field of western photography collecting, they are certainly not the only types that are oollectable and desirable. One must not forget such areas as the American Indian and the highly desirable daguerrian images of California gold mining ( although the gold mining image pale in value today compared with some cabinets of personalities such as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in cabinet images).
Photographic views of American Indians are highly desirable. Many collectors specialize in these views. They can be found in daguerreotypes taken from the late 1830’s through the mid 1850’s, in ambrotypes taken in the 1850’s and 1860’s, and in tintypes taken between the 1860’s and the early 1900’s. Carte-de-visites were commonly taken in the late 1860’s or early 1870’s, and studio cabinet cards were taken from the 1860’s to the early 1900s. Generally speaking, the finest examples are in the 1870-1880 eras with Apache Indians comanding very high values.
Various types and eras of photography are collected for photographic medium, content. age, condition, photographer’s marks and artistic quality. American Western photography is the epitomy of photography collecting because of its specific content and historical value. Collectors in this field are often just as pleased with a paper photograph of excellent quality and content as they are with a daguerreotype of similar quality and content. Consequently, as paper photographs are somewhat more abundant than daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. this category of collecting affords the collector a wider range of possibilities. For this reason, it is an excellent collecting field for anyone.
The areas above, however, do not take into consideration numerous other areas that are considered collectable. These include scenes of early Western towns, trail drives, chuckwagons, wagon trains, stage coaches and ranches. Occupationals, such as lawmen wearing their star or shield badges, are highly collectable.
Historically, one automatically thinks of photographs of known personalities when considering Western photography. Of course, these particular images are among the rarest and most prized of any collection of this type. Some collectors even specialized in this field almost exclusively ( such as in the recent sale of the Bob McCubbin collection). However, these are exceedingly hard to find, generally command excessive prices and come up infrequently. I would suggest you expand out some as you may experience a lot of empty time sitting around waiting for these.
At this point, I want to take a short aside here. At the end of the auction catalog of the Bob McCubbin sale there is a page titled 'Bob's advice for a new collector'?. I quote it here:
'Develope a focus. Don't be an accumulator, be a collector and start with what you like best. There will be time to branch out later. Buy the most expensive items you can at first, they'll only get more expensive and harder to find, and you can always get the easy ones later. Also , buy the things you need and figure out how to pay for them later.'
I honor and respect Bob McCubbin greatly. The collection he put together was fantastic and very well thought out for HIM. It certainly went for, in my opinion, far less than it was worth in many cases. I also agree for the most part in this advice. However, I totally disagree with the last line! Bob McCubbin ( and myself for that matter) purchase/purchased with a considerable cash flow that most young collectors simply do not have. Do not over extend yourself or go into unnecessary debt to purchase expensive items. Purchase only what you can afford. If you are of limited means, chose items that are within those mean using expendable leasure funds. Be smart, be careful and build as your means increase.
Finally, I am in all cases a true collector as you will see as I add images to this site over the coming years. I really do not understand the word 'accumulator'. I think it tends to have a negative connotation. Prehaps that was what was meant? Collectors and collections can be defined in many forms. Some collections are relatively small ( like McCubbins) or quite large ( like mine) but each collector, within his/her financial means , must set that goal themselves.
I have loved collecting and it has enhansed my life. I recommend it whole heartedly!
Take care. Come back soon. Enjoy sharing with me. Happy collecting. God Bless.
In another article we need to discuss fakes. There are a LOT of them around now and it needs to be addressed.
For now, here is a short breakdown of the five main types of antique photography.
DAGUERREOTYPE:
The earliest form of photography. called a daguerreotype was invented by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre in the 1830 s. This delicate image was produced by the camera directly onto sheet copper with a silver oxide process. This process caused the actual image to have a distinctive mirror image quality and the image must be viewed by slightly turning it out of the direct light to the right or left. It was popular in the United States in the 1840 to l 850 period and is quite rare in Western photography, making an appearance mostly in the early Gold Rush period in California. The values are based on content and size. The largest sizes are the most rare and valuable to the collectors of these images. Authenticated photographs of Western personalities in this medium should he considered the most valuable for our purposes here.
AMBROTYPES:
Ambrotypes were produced by a process similar to daguerreotypes except that they were produce directlgly on glass and are the most delicate images ever produced. For this reason, they were not popular and most were produced in the 1850-1865 period. Ambrotypes were most common in the Civil War era but a few were taken in the West as late as the early 1870’s. Sizes vary greatly and are graded as daguerreotypes, the largest being the most valuable. These images were also placed in fancy cases for their protection. Western images in this medium should be considered extremely valuable and second only to daguerreotypes.
STUDIO CABINET CARDS:
Studio Cabinet cards are the most common photographic medium. Produced in the 1860-1920 period, these paper photographs were mounted on cardboard mounts bearing the photograher’s name and address usually but some bearing no marks are also common. The actual photograph was developed from a glass negative in a process quite similar to modern photography. There was no real standard of size but the most common size was a 5 3/4” X 4” photograph mounted on a 6 X 4” mount. Virtually all of the known, famous photographs of Western personalities are in this medium.
CARTE-DE-VISITES:
The Carte-de-visite was essentially a small cabinet card, the size of an early business card (thus carte-de-visite or photo business card). They were first produced as early as the late 1850’s and remained popular until the turn of the century. These paper images were produced by the same procedure as cabinet cards, from a glass negative. The cardboard mounts often, but not always, bear the photographer’s name and address on the reverse side of the mount. The most common size was a 3” X 2” photograph on a 4” X 2” mount. Some important personality photographs were produced in this medium but they should be considered rare. However, based on the personality, the values may well be the same as a larger cabinet photograph to the collector.
TINTYPES:
Tintypes have no negatives. They are photographic images developed and produced directly on sheets of tin, then cut to size. This process was used from the early 1860’s until the early 1900’s and was the most common medium, following the studio cabinet card in popularity. There were no mounts required and the sizes varied extensively from very small to very large (with larger sizes being most rare). The most common size was 3” X 2 3/4”. One of the most popular aspects of the tintype was that it could be transported in a coat pocket of saddle bag without fundamentally hurting it. Authenticated photographs of Western personalities in this medium should be considered quite rare.
