1906 Premo Latent? Glass Plate Images

[Tin Can]

While preparing to load L. Jason Dry Plates in my LN Premo film holder, from a VGC 4X5 Premo full kit I had to remove 2 old glass plates.

I had looked at these plates before and thought they have ruined emulsion. Good thing I did not toss them. I was going to. The lightbox showed little. V700 found more.

I think these plates are old. The camera kit is in a tattered original case, but the camera is barely touched. I date it 1906 as the set includes an empty Primo Film Pack holder. First year.

Enlarging the scan shows 3 men in a pram with very long oars. One man has suspenders on. The image must be old from those details.

I think these were never developed but somehow self-developed...? Ideas?

Raw scan by moe.randy, on Flickr

River Bridge FS scan PS by moe.randy, on Flickr

3 men pram suspenders FS PS by moe.randy, on Flickr

[chassis]

Looks good Randy.

[Randy]

"One man has suspenders on. The image must be old from those details."
I wear suspenders...

This is amazing - wonderful find. I wonder if you could scan / crop the section showing the buildings closer and post - someone may be able to recognize some buildings...if they are still standing.

[Tin Can]

Thanks, I did think of that. I will see what I can do.

Now I need to develop a J.Lane Dry Plate.

"One man has suspenders on. The image must be old from those details."
I wear suspenders...

This is amazing - wonderful find. I wonder if you could scan / crop the section showing the buildings closer and post - someone may be able to recognize some buildings...if they are still standing.

[Steven Tribe]

This is a very good "sign" for your new dry plate endeavours!

[Tin Can]

I'm just experimenting. Nodda Duma is selling plates under J. Lane Dry Plates on this forum.

This is a very "sign" for your new dry plate endeavours!

[Tin Can]

"One man has suspenders on. The image must be old from those details."
I wear suspenders...

This is amazing - wonderful find. I wonder if you could scan / crop the section showing the buildings closer and post - someone may be able to recognize some buildings...if they are still standing.

Here you go. I don't know it. Looks like eastern usa. I'll put it on FB also.

town crop hi rezRiver Bridge FS scan PS by moe.randy, on Flickr

[Mark Sampson]

Wild stuff Randy. Best of luck- keep at it- I'm sure you don't need reminding that most of the historic contact-printing processes require very contrasty negatives. "Plucky" was the word they used back then.

[Two23]

The railroad bridge is a type made popular by the Missouri Pacific after about 1905. It became the most popular style and hundreds of them are still in use today.


Kent in SD

[John Layton]

I'm guessing that many on this forum know well...usually through oversight/absent mindedness - how both film and paper are capable, undeveloped, of producing "ambient images" (visible latent images) while being exposed to light over time. What seems unusual here is to see such latent, undeveloped images despite what even when taken would have been relatively short exposure times (note figures in boats). While I guess its possible that the necessary silver reduction would indeed happen over time, my further thought is that this would typically be accompanied by an amount of cumulative radiation over the same period which would render any image invisible. Perhaps something about the chemical/physical nature of dry plates which makes this possible?

Of course...there is another possibility - that the original photographer simply used the plate holder to store the processed negatives!