Sepia Saturday 279: Looking for the Bonanza

In the introduction to last week's edition of Sepia Saturday, Alan Burnett asked whether the meme is becoming old and tired, perhaps prompted by a recent reduction in the number of participants. Personally, I find the stimulus of a fresh sepia image chosen by someone else each week is just what I need to keep me blogging regularly, that is when I'm not too submerged in work or other projects to find the time. Following the theme is not a requirement, which gives me plenty of leeway to sail off on another tack when the mood takes me, or on the odd occasion that I fail to be inspired by the chosen image.

Many of my Photo-Sleuth articles are weeks or months in gestation, perhaps searching for that extra bit of information, cosidering the right angle to tackle a particular photograph, or waiting for the right image prompt, so always having images from a couple of weeks ahead to work on at the same time suits me well. My first SS contribution appeared four years ago (SS 64) and my 93 subsequent contributions have been made as and when the opportunity presents itself. I'm very grateful to Alan and Marilyn for the time and effort that they put in to making Sepia Saturday happen. I'd also like to acknowledge the body of fellow Sepians for the inspiring photos they post and thoughtful feedback regularly provided here. Without it, I fear that my blog would have fallen into disrepair long ago.


Unmounted paper print, 61 x 89mm
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
On the face of it, these two snapshots might appear a strange purchase for my collection of old photographs. Of unknown provenance, all contextual information apart from the captions handwritten on the backs has gone, leaving us with few clues to the identity of the subjects, even to where they were taken. It wasn't the challenge of sleuthing, though, that attracted me, but rather the content of the first image.

Even without the brief annotation on the back describing it as "The Mill," I recognised it as a three-stamp mill of the type commonly used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to process gold ore, complete with heavy timber frame, driving wheel, cam shaft with tappets, stamper stems, mortar box with discharge screen, tables and amalgam plates. When I first started work as an exploration geologist in the Midlands of Zimbabwe during the mid-1980s, I came across a few of these antiquated but effective pieces of equipment still being used in remote bush locations, usually by equally aged smallworkers in a forlorn quest for their own bonanza.


Reverse of paper print
The caption identifies the subjects as 'Hamish,' with his back to the camera, 'January,' the mill foreman and presumably one of the two black men standing either side of the tables, and the two children 'A & J.'. The mere fact that January and the other gold mill worker are black doesn't necessarily mean that the photograph was taken in what was then called Southern Rhodesia (it became Zimbabwe after independence in 1980), but the countryside and vegetation depicted in the second of the two snapshots are very familiar to me, and I think it highly likely.

In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, the Southern Rhodesian government set up an ex-serviceman's rehabilitation scheme, whereby returning white soldiers were provided with training in small-scale mining at a former air force training facility at Guinea Fowl, near the town of Gwelo, now called Gweru. (As a sidebar, I might note that black soldiers also returning from the same war got absolutely nothing.) After completion of their training, they were given soft loans to re-open old gold mines closed during the war or start up new operations. With 221 men trained and 279 mines re-opened, the scheme was regarded as successful (Dreschler, 2001), and it seems quite likely that 'Hamish' could have been one of these smallworkers.


Unmounted paper print, 83 x 60mm
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The second photo shows 'Joan, Heather & Andrew, on lawn, 1950, May' (resumably from right to left), so it was taken about four years later. Now there are three children, all wearing wide-brimmed hats to ward off the harsh African sun, and playing on a manicured lawn, rather than hanging around the dangerous mill site. The wide variety of toys suggests that Hamish had achieved at least some success at the mine.


Reverse of paper print
The snapshots are both roughly 2¼" x 3¼", equating to the 620 roll film format that was introduced by Kodak in 1931, and rapidly replaced the similarly sized 120-format film which used a slightly larger spool. By the mid-1940s various versions of the Six-20 Brownie box and Six-20 Kodak folding camera were probably the most popular options available to casual amateur photographers. Many of the folding models used an eye-level viewfinder by this time, and it looks to me that these shots were taken from the lower, waist-level view point characteristically employed with the box Brownies. In the first shot, the eyes of the older girl are on a level with Hamish's waist.


Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' box camera, 1937-1943
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection
I suspect they were taken with something like the Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' which was manufactured from 1937 until 1943. It also seems safe to assume that the children's mother was both the photographer and the person who annotated the prints once they had been printed. Presumably Joan, Heather and Andrew were children of the said Hamish, and there is a remote chance that some member of the extended family of Scottish origin (after all, who else would have the name Hamish) will recognise them and get in touch.


Visiting smallworker gold claims, Munyati River, Zimbabwe, 1985
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
You might have thought the scene of such a rudimentary mining operation might have long gone by the 1980s. I don't have photos of the mill - which were indeed very much like the one depicted above - but I do have a snapshot that I took of my sister and a friend visiting Uncle Bob Huntly's smallworking near the Munyati/Umniati River south of Kadoma in 1985. The equipment at the head of the mining shaft consists of nothing more than a bucket suspended on a rope around a hand-operated windlass - not even a ratchet in case the hands slipped. I can't believe it, but I went down there, probably without even a hard hat.


The Stamping Ground, Rocky Creek Railway
Working Model by Glen Anthony
I'll close off with this entertaining video of an incredibly accurate working model mine, made by a very clever man in Christchurch, New Zealand. Once you've finished watching that I'm sure the rest of this week's Sepia Saturday participants will keep you entertained a while longer.

Sepia Saturday 69: First cameras, first photographs

Mary Pickford was born the day before my grandfather, and theoretically the two events could have been just minutes apart, albeit she in Toronto and he some 440 miles away in Chicago. Sadly, I can't think of much else to link the image prompt for this week's Sepia Saturday with the subject that I've had in mind for a few weeks. At a stretch, I suppose I could have said that the photograph of the "girl with the golden curls" holding an early movie camera provided the inspiration for today's Photo-Sleuth article about our first experiences with taking photos, or that she too became familiar with the camera at a very early age. The truth is that the subject of my article has been gestating for a while, and the time seems right, so you'll have to just infer whatever links you feel might be appropriate.

For many of us, at least of my generation, the Sixties and the era set off by the Kodak Instamatic 100 was our first personal experience of using a camera, but it's easy to forget that we were by no means the first generation to have access to cameras in our childhood. My father Charles Bernard 'Bud' Payne (1928-2006) was sixteen when he bought his first camera, an early start at what was to remain a keen interest for the rest of his life. I'm fortunate that he reminisced about his early photographic experimentation in a letter to me some years ago [1].


Michael Kirk, Tony & Ronnie Gray, Bunnie Payne & 'Rusty'
Woodlands Farm, Chellaston, c. April 1944
Taken with a Kodak Six-20 Folding Brownie by Bud Payne [2]
My Dad bought his first camera at his uncle's shop: A.J. Brown, M.P.S., Dispensing Chemist, 202 Burton Rd, Derby [3].

When I acquired my first camera - a 620 [sic - usually called a Six-20] Kodak Folding Brownie (fixed aperture, exposure and focus, but I had a close-up lens too) in March 1944, the first film (Verichrome) was inexpertly processed and became badly reticulated. I discarded the eight neg[ative]s years ago and only have one print - of Bunnie with some young boys and Rusty.

Kodak Six-20 Folding Brownie with close-up lens [4]

Among the discarded prints was one of a rabbit called Benny - a Dutch buck. Well I expect it was a buck, but sexing at an early eage was tricky, and I recall that Hansel became Gretel when the organs were easier to identify. Why 'Benny'? You may well ask. About three months later I photographed 'Benny washing his face' on a piece of R.A.F. Pan film - no neg or print of that has survived, although according to my notes, the negs were OK. I took no more rabbit pictures, and I think this must be evidence of my declining interest in keeping livestock - I had other, competing hobbies, including photography!

Self portrait, Charles Bernard Payne
"Rustington," 36 Glenwood Road, Chellaston, August 1944
Taken with a Kodak Six-20 Folding Brownie by Bud Payne [5]

The lad who reticulated film A4 was E.K.C. Varty, a school mate, originally from Calke, then living at Alvaston, who had great ambitions in the photography field. He organized the Union of Amateur Photographers, renamed the Trent Vale Photographic Society and finally the Association of Young Photographers, whose first exhibiton was held at Bemrose School in 1945. There were 20 exhibitors, only 5 from Derby, of whom I was one, as were Ken Varty and Allan Bell. Members were divided into groups of half a dozen - we sent round prints for criticism by fellow group members every few weeks, but when Ken, Allan and others were called up for National Service in late 1945 the organisation collapsed. Ken was a funny chap, cleverer than I imagined, became a professor of French, wrote a book on the fox and died of cancer - probably in his early 40s. He and great pal Tom Roylance (prof. of physics, Middle Eastern univ.) amused themselves in season by blowing up frogs through straws inserted in the cloaca. I don't know which species of frogs are carcinogenic.

I forget where we bought the expired R.A.F. film, but it came in 11 ft x 5½ inches rolls (in tins) which I cut down to size using a home made device covered in black velvet which Bunnie helped me to operate in the cubby-hole under the stairs - a tricky job in total darkness. A rather crude exercise, but films, like rabbit food, were hard to come by in 1944, and this material was cheap: 10 shillings a roll. The following yaer Allan Bell and I made an enlarger, the lens for which came from an old 'stand camera' given to me by Uncle Arthur. A lot of time and ingenuity was spent on this piece of equipment; it never performed well because the optics weren't quite right, but it gave us a good deal of fun (=exasperation). Why on earth didn't I photograph it instead of clouds and more clouds?

Agfa Iso-Pak camera [6]
Some two and a half decades later and I was setting out on my own photographic adventures for the first time. Judging by the date ascribed to an enlargement of this photograph in my mother's photo album, I think I must have received the Agfa Iso-Pak camera (shown above) as a ninth birthday present, just before Christmas the previous month. Although I can't locate the original negatives at the moment - they must be in a "safe" place, I suppose - I believe that this is a print from the first film that I took with that camera.


Diana Payne, Baines Avenue, Salisbury, January 1971
(outside Caves Hotel)
Taken with an Agfa Iso-Pak by Brett Payne [7]
I feel sure that it had been purchased at my Dad's favourite camera shop, "Salisbury Photographic & Electrical" on Gordon Avenue, and the first few photographs were taken in Salisbury (as it was called then) after perhaps buying a 126 film cartridge on a return visit. We lived several hours' car journey away, and only went to the city a couple of times a year, when we would stay at the Caves Motel.

I recall one of the duty managers being a portly man who I imagined might be Burl Ives's older brother, and the magnificent breakfasts served on silver trays (well, stainless steel, perhaps) with toast, marmalade and butterballs! One of the other shots on this mislaid film was the other duty manager, taller and thinner and not nearly as jovial, but obviously attentive enough to precocious nine year-olds, posing next to the hotel entrance. This photograph, however, is of my sister Diana, standing in the "car park" on Baines Avenue, in pretty much the same dutiful pose that her Aunt Bunnie had used a generation earlier.

I went on to use that camera for some years, going through many spools of both black-and-white and colour film, although limited by conflicting demands on meagre pocket money, until I upgraded to a cheap but much appreciated Ricoh 35mm SLR in late November or early December 1983.


Perfect Shot™ 110 Fisher-Price camera [8]
Twenty-five years after my first efforts my eldest daughter, then four years old, was the recipient of a Fisher-Price camera that we, I am reliably informed, bought for her at a small shop in the town of Lefkas at the northern tip of the Greek island of Lefkada. Although patented in March 1995, the model (#3815), which took 110 size cartridge film, was apparently first introduced, according to some sources, in 1993 or 1994 [9,10]. The advertising blurb states that it was "designed for children ages 5 years and older," but I guess we thought she could manage it alright, and she did. The poor quality plastic lens, fixed aperture, shutter speed and focus and the 110 film format, though, while making it very simple to operate, restricted its capabilities considerably.

Her first picture appears to have been a portrait of Gill and I in the spotless second-floor "Zimmer frei" in Lefkas where we spent a night before heading south, via ferry, to Ithaka [11]. By correlation with my own photographs of that trip, which are dated, it must have been taken on the 6th October 1996.


Louise Payne, Monemvassia (Lower Town), Greece, 15 October 1996
Taken with a Fisher-Price Perfect Shot camera by Lesley Payne [12]
By the time she took this portrait of her younger sister Louise, hamming it up for the camera - never one to pose demurely - nine days later, we had island-hopped to Patra, driven south to Olympia and the west coast of the Peloponnese Peninsula, down and around it's southern tip, and then across to the impressive citadel of Monemvassia.


Lesley Payne, Venetian Fortress, Methoni, Greece, 12 October 1996
Taken with Minolta XG-9 35mm SLR Camera & Sigma 28-200 Zoom Lens by Brett Payne [13]
This shot taken by me shows Lesley, who did pose demurely if slightly self-consciously, with her camera at the ready inside the Venetian military fortress of Methoni, memorable for its massive bastioned ramparts and the fortified Bourtzi islet.

Now that we have all graduated to digital formats, it will be interesting to see what the next generation use to take their photographs, and what they choose as their first subjects. I suspect they will do as Allan Vestergard Nielsen described so simply, and yet eloquently, in My First Camera on his blog five years ago:

I got my first camera when I was 9 years of age. My father gave it to me on my birthday, and before the day was over I had taken the first roll of film. I did what every kid does when provided with a camera; I photographed my dog, my house, my friend, a flower, my parents and everything else I cherished. I was hooked on photography immediately - as I still am. And I discovered one of the main things about taking pictures; I could freeze the moment and preserve it as a memory.

Mosaic of "first photographs" from various sources [15-20]
Some haphazard scouting around on the net turned up several "first photographs," including a Flickr group entitled "The first picture we ever took." They all have a very similar feel about them, with their off-centred but familiar subjects, sometimes half out of the frame, tilted skylines, and always the low "child's eye" vantage point from which they were taken. Links to the images featured in the mosaic can be found at the end of the "References." Many thanks to the creators of the photos for their permission to include them here.

I wonder if you remember when you took your first photograph, and what camera you used. Do you still have a print of the photo, or the original camera, perhaps? Can you recall the circumstances surrounding those first few attempts at capturing your immediate surroundings: family, home, friends, pets? Does the image have a special meaning to you, or bring back particular memories? It's also worthwhile looking back amongst the photographs preserved by your parents and grandparents. Which of them might have been "first photographs"? Post a scan on your blog, along with your story, and please feel free to leave a note and link as a comment here so we can share in your reminiscences and discoveries.

And don't forget to head on over to Sepia Saturday 69, where you'll find plenty more to while away your weekend.

References

[1] Payne, Bud (2002) Letter to Brett Payne, dated 31 October 2002 at Borradaile Trust, Marondera, Zimbabwe, Collection of Brett Payne.

[2] Photograph of Michael Kirk, Tony & Ronnie Gray, Bunnie Payne & 'Rusty' in a field, near Woodlands Farm, Chellaston, c. April 1944, Paper print (77 x 53.5 mm), taken with Kodak Six-20 Folding Brownie Camera, by Bud Payne, Collection of Bud Payne.

[3] 1941 Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire, London: Kelly's Directories Ltd., Ancestry

[4] Image of Kodak Six-20 Folding Brownie with close-up lens, Courtesy of

[5] Photograph of Bud Payne at "Rustington, 36 Glenwood Road, Chellaston, August 1944, Paper print (55 x 795 mm), taken with Kodak Six-20 Folding Brownie, by Bud Payne, Collection of Bud Payne.

[6] Image of Agfa Iso-Pak camera, by Francois15 and courtesy of Flickr.

[7] Photograph of Diana Payne, Baines Avenue, Salisbury (outside Caves Hotel), January 1971, Taken with Agfa Iso-Pak Camera, by Brett Payne, Collection of Brett Payne.

[8] Image of Perfect Shot™ 110 Camera by Fisher-Price, by Mike Martin Wong and courtesy of Flickr.

[9] U.S. Patent 356,587, Photographic camera by Shuler et al. & Fisher-Price, Inc., Google Patents.

[10] #3815/#73815 Perfect Shot™ 110 Camera, by This Old Toy.

[11] (Not pictured) Photograph of Brett and Gill Payne, Lefkas, 6 October 1996, Taken with Fisher-Price Perfect Shot™ 110 Camera by Lesley Payne, Collection of Brett & Gill Payne.

[12] Photograph of Louise Payne, Monemvassia, 15 October 1996, Taken with Fisher-Price Perfect Shot™ 110 Camera by Lesley Payne, Collection of Brett & Gill Payne.

[13] Photograph of Lesley Payne, Venetian Fortress, Methoni, Greece, 12 October 1996, Taken with Minolta XG-9 35mm SLR Camera & Sigma 28-200 Zoom Lens by Brett Payne, Collection of Brett & Gill Payne.

[14] My First Camera", by Allan Vestergard Nielsen.

[15] My first photograph, Wyandotte, Michigan, 1958, by Hilarywho and courtesy of Flickr.

[16] First picture I ever took, Christmas 1965, taken with Kodak Instamatic 124 camera by Donna Marsh and courtesy of Flickr.

[17] My first photograph, Twin Lights, Highlands, New Jersey, September 1967, taken with Diana camera by Arthur Costigan and courtesy of Flickr.

[18] My first photographs, Queens Botanical Garden, Flushing, New York, taken with Imperial Instant Load 900 camera by Angela T.

[19] The first picture I ever took, undated, by lemonjenny and courtesy of Flickr.

[20] My dog Zip & trophy, Mt. Washington, Ohio, 1968, taken with Kodak Hawkeye Flashfun II by L. David Likes.

My Dad and Princess Margaret

Bud Payne, March 1951

On the evening of 13th July, 1953 I was standing at the edge of a dance floor with umpteen other likely lads, when a petite and comely young woman walked by. She looked – not glanced – at me, and I at her for a second or two until she was past, and I was slightly embarrassed. She died yesterday. Among other things I was wearing one of the nicest pairs of shoes I’ve ever owned : Crockett & Jones classic Oxford front black, but they were half a size too big for me and therefore stuffed with old newspaper.

Bud Payne, 10 February 2002

PRINCESS MARGARET AT A BALL

Princess Margaret, 13th July 1953

Princess Margaret wore a 10-tier evening dress of white lace sprinkled with sequins when she attended a young people's ball at Government House, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. The ball, attended by more than 800 young people from the age of 17 upwards, was given in her honour. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, attended also. At the request of the Princess a number of Scottish reels and square dances were included in the programme.

Canberra Times (ACT), 25 Jul 1953

Princess Dances Reels

Princess Margaret, radiant and animated, led her partners expertly through the steps of Scottish reels at a young people's ball in Government House. The Princess, who had just recovered from a heavy cold, led any hesitant partner in the right direction with a nod of the head. An African police band provided the music.

Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), 16 July 1953

Princess Radiant at Young People's Ball

The Queen Mother, Governor General and Princess Margaret
13th July 1953

The Princess entered the ballroom accompanied by her mother. She was dressed in a lace-frilled gown, with a diamond tiara, and wore the blue ribbon sash of the Victorian Order.

The West Australian (Perth), 15 July 1953

References

[1] Head and shoulders portrait of Charles Bernard "Bud" Payne (1928-2006), Unmounted silver gelatin print, 77.5 x 101.0 mm, by unidentified photographer, dated March 1951, Collection of Barbara Ellison.

[2] Payne, C.B. (2002) Letter to Brett Payne, dated 10 February 2002 at Marondera, Zimbabwe, Collection of Brett Payne.

[3] Full length portrait of Princess Margaret (1930-2002) at Government House, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, Press photograph by unidentified photographer, 13 July 1953, Collection of Roman Benedik Hanson & QueensImages.

[4] Newspaper Extracts, Australia Trove, National Library of Australia.

[5] Full length portrait of the Queen Mother, the Governor General and Princess Margaret at Government House, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, Press photograph by unidentified photographer, 13 July 1953, Collection of Roman Benedik Hanson & QueensImages.

7th Edition of Smile for the Camera - Oh Baby!

Here is my entry for the 7th Edition of Smile for the Camera - A Carnival of Images, with the theme Oh! Baby, which will be hosted by FootnoteMaven on Shades of the Departed.


There's not really much to sleuth in this photograph, although there is an easily spotted clue there to my Dutch heritage. That's me on the left - none to pleased about something - with my friend Tapua Mushunje and his mum, Christina, on the verandah of our house in Nyanga (Zimbabwe). It must have been taken in late 1961 or early 1962. I have no idea what happened to Tapua.

CDVs - a new Medium for Portraits of Famous People

I've written in a previous post about how the carte de visite became wildly popular in the 1860s, mostly due to its low cost. Part of this popularity appears to have been due to the new fad for collecting pictures of famous people. Such cdvs are now enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and can fetch considerable prices on eBay. Reproduced below are two from my own collection.


As a young man Robert Moffat (1795-1883) was sent by the London Missionary Society to Africa in 1816. He and his wife Mary settled at Kuruman, where they built a mission and remained there until 1870, when they returned to England. They had ten children, their oldest daughter Mary marrying famous African explorer, David Livingstone (1813-1873). During his time in southern Africa, Moffat made several journeys into neighbouring regions such as Matabeleland (later in Rhodesia, now part of Zimbabwe), and published accounts of the trips both through the Royal Geographic Society and as a book, Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa (1842). His grandson Howard Unwin Moffat (1869-1951) subsequently served as prime minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1927 to 1933. According to Wikipedia, "His government passed the 1930 Land Apportionment Act, which defined the pattern of land allocation and ownership and is viewed as being one of the ultimate causes of the land disputes in Zimbabwe from 2000." To explain my interest in this particular cdv, one of Robert's descendants was a friend of mine while I was a school boy growing up in the Eastern Districts of Rhodesia.


The pair in the second example were amongst the most popular non-royal subjects for cartes de visite in the 1860s and 1870s, which was probably the heyday for the Victorian phase of this collecting craze. Mr & Mrs General Tom Thumb were creations of the impresario P.T. Barnum (of Barnum & Bailey fame). The midgets' real names were Charles Sherwood Stratton (1838-1883) and Lavinia Warren Bump (1841-1919). (Of course, he wasn't a general at all, or even a soldier.) They were married on 10 February 1863 at Grace Episcopal Church, New York City, the reception at the Metropolitan Hotel being a huge social occasion with over 2000 guests. This particular portrait appears to be one of a series taken by reknowned American photographer Mathew Brady (1822-1896) on the day of the wedding, and subsequently licensed to E. & H.T. Anthony, publishers of 501 Broadway, New York. An article forming part of a presentation of Brady's portraits by the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution includes the following:

Mr. and Mrs. General Tom Thumb
On February 10, 1863, "The Little Queen of Beauty" married international celebrity "General Tom Thumb" in a lavish ceremony at New York's fashionable Grace Church. The two performers enjoyed a true romance before announcing their engagement, which Tom Thumb's employer, P. T. Barnum , promoted to the hilt. For weeks before the wedding, crowds of 20,000 or more paid $3,000 a day to see the bride-to-be and her engagement ring. Barnum received 15,000 requests for tickets to the reception (which cost $75 each). On the wedding day, crowds blocked Broadway for hours, and newspapers published pages of detailed descriptions of the "Fairy Wedding," the gifts and the guests, who included New York's most fashionable families. Barnum completed the wedding party with best man "Commodore" George Nutt and Minnie Bump, Lavinia's actual sister, and for years the group toured the globe, eventually reaching Japan, China, Australia, and India. Brady made many carte-de-visite photographs in preparation for the wedding, an arrangement that doubtless profited everyone, including the performers, who sold portraits wherever they appeared.

Another of Brady's portraits, including the bridal couple with the officiating minister and witnesses, "Commodore" G.W.M Nutt (another of Barnum's protegés) and Lavinia's sister Minnie Warren, is shown below.


I was intrigued by the "signatures" of Charles and Lavinia Stratton on the reverse of the card mount, imagining the happy couple signing thousands upon thousands of them. However, a close examination and comparison with other examples found on the net show that they are not just similar, but identical, and must be printed facsimiles printed on the card. The carte de visite shown below, currently attracting bids of over £40 on eBay, picturing Minnie Warren and Charles and Lavinia Stratton, may have been taken in London on one of their visits to England, and published by the ubiquitous London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company (who also produced the Robert Moffat cdv above).


Another feature of these portraits of famous people - at least on those from the US - is that they were often blind stamped with marks, symbols or monograms, possibly indicating that the photographs had been copyrighted. Two of these (a flag and the initials CAW, or perhaps GAW/GWA/WAG) can be seen on the reverse of the London Stereoscopic cdv of the Stratton-Warren family above. The cdv of the Strattons published by Anthony shows similar, but not identical, blind stamp marks on the front. If any reader can shed light on these marks, what they mean, and how to interpret them, I would be most grateful (email me).