Matt Isenberg passing

[goamules]

I just heard Matt Isenberg has passed. He was the preeminent collector of early American photographic equipment and Daguerreotypes. I learned a lot about a few of my items, from his writings. I once got a look at his collection, via emailed photographs. It was a fantastic group of Daguerreotype cameras all with their original Radial Drive petzval lenses. But he also had the small things that get lost and forgotten, such as packaged dag plates, and wetplate equipment. He sold his collection a few years ago for $15Million, if that tells you anything.

http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/obituary-matt-isenburg-photographic-collector-and-historian

http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/isenburg-collection-of-early-photography-sells-for-15-million

http://gregfrenchearlyphotography.com/wi/3.jpg

http://www.gregfrenchearlyphotography.com/wi/ shows some of his collection.

[Peter Gomena]

Wow. It's people like this that save all the important and odd bits of our medium's history for the rest of us.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

Matt was the best sort of collector. He opened his collection to practitioners, allowing many of us to visit, measure, inspect and eventually duplicate from it.