[pure-silver] Re: Print size advice.
- From: Michael Briggs <MichaelBriggs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 23:57:02 -0500 (CDT)
On 22-Oct-2004 Stein wrote:
> I have been reading about historic print sizes and among the more exotic
> " Boudoir " and " Victoria " ones is the good old prosaic Whole Plate. But my
> sources list Whole Plate as either:
>
> 1. 6" x 8"
>
> 2. 6.5" x 8.5"
>
> 3. 6.75" x 8.75"
Whole plat is supposed to be 6.5 x 8.5 inches.
>
> And then they chop it into Half Plate, Quarter Plate, etc in various
> ways.
>
> Can anyone state authoritatively what the size of the the real Whole
> Plate is? Thanks in advance - I'm planning the 2005 calendar.
Half plate is supposed to be 4.25 x 5.5, quarter 3.25 x 4.25, sixth 2.75 x 3.25.
These go all the way back to the Daguerreian era (the first pure-silver
process!), when it was copper plates that were being used, not glass. The
plates were manufactured full size and cut smaller.
I have some daguerreotypes, but none of whole plate size (out of my price
range) -- so I can "authoritatively" measure only the smaller sizes:
I measured two sixth plates, the most common size, and found them to be quite
close to the nominal size. Note that 3 times 2.75 = 8.25 -- probably this is
allowance for loss in the cutting. Six of these would definitely be bigger
than 6 x 8 inches. A quarter plate that I measured was a bit smaller in
both dimensions than 3.25 x 4.0, so a full quarter of an inch smaller than the
nominal size.
Sizes probably weren't as standardized back then. The plate holders didn't
need an exact size to work, unlike today's film holders.
--Michael
P.S. Some of the the daguerreotypes that I have are shown at
http://home.earthlink.net/~michaelbriggs/dags/dags.html.
Most are sixth plates. The last pair, showing the same girl twice, are ninth
plates, nominally 2 x 2.5 inches.
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