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goamules
20-May-2020, 09:00
Well, another great photography forum has closed. Collodion.com has shut down. Quinn decided to close it.

The history is that there was a tintype re-enactors website run by Bob Szabo back in the early 2000s. At that time, wetplate was almost a forgotten art, but a few people were resurrecting it, almost all of them doing Civil War battlefield tintypes. I discovered the forum and was instantly thrilled. I had an Epiphany that wetplate collodion would be just the new skill for me to learn - difficult, esoteric, and fairly rare for people to do. Another forum was just starting in 2005, without the re-enactor concentration (using authentic cameras, lenses, dark boxes so you would fit in on the battlefields). It was Collodion.com. Quinn Jacobson had done a wetplate series of inner city people that was well received. He became the standard bearer on the internet (a few others, like Coffer, didn't do things online at all). He moved to Europe and for several years taught hundreds of photographers there how to do collodion. It grew more and more, becaming VERY big by 2010. He created the World Wetplate Day, which funded a new headstone for the grave of Frederick Archer, the inventor of wetplate. He did demos at the Bievre Foto Fair. I joined him. I made a lot of friends on both forums. Wetplate became my life for many years. I traveled to Europe, moderated the Collodion.com forum, sold lenses and cameras.

What a long, strange trip it's been. Facebook has taken over most dedicated forums. You loose a lot on Facebook. There is no organization of topics, for example. On Collodion, we had troubleshooting sections, equipment, common problems, formulas, and more, all organized and a click away. Today, on Facebook wetplate groups, you have the same questions asked over and over, because the answers get pushed off the page by any new content. So "what fixer do I use?" get's asked 14 times a week. With different answers by unknown people, conflicting answers, arguments. Then 3 days later, it gets asked again. Basically it's like taking a guidebook and club of experts, and tearing it into little pieces in front a fan, letting a crowd on the sidewalk catch the pieces and try to make sense of it.

Don't let it happen to LF Forum. I've seen about 5 great hobby forums die the past few years.

Tin Can
20-May-2020, 09:18
I am late to Wet Plate, now waiting on gear but did follow the Bastards for a while

Today I re-joined FB after 3 years off, our venues narrow

I will be reenacting post Civil War photo, 1871 to 1995 as much as I can on a pristine, groomed college campus, meaning don't spill anything...

they are installing electricity with WIFI and bicycle path, everything changes

we wear historical clothing, folk crafts are welcome

paulbarden
20-May-2020, 09:53
Quinn's decision was more about managing costs than giving in to The Facebook Monster eating his audience. Still, its a shame to lose the collodion forum. But as much as I lament the loss of Quinn's forum, there's no way I will join Facebook to access a dumbed-down version of it. Facebook was never intended as an archive, let alone an organized one - its just a streaming conversation. Its tragic that so many well-organized forums with excellent archive features have been ruined by Facebook. I hate what its done to erode the archive-ability of the internet.

ghostcount
20-May-2020, 09:57
Bummer.

I found content in Quinn's forum to be more reliable since it is viewed by Quinn, Garrett, et al.

I'm sure the same can be said during Mr. Archer's time but perhaps magnified since the world has become smaller leading to the rapidity of valid and invalid information exchanges.

Will Quinn make an effort in archiving the entire forum? I know Bob Szabo archived his but alas, that is also gone.

goamules
20-May-2020, 10:42
I'm checking with Quinn on that. Bob's site I noticed disappeared about 2 years ago, after about 6 years of being available, but no commenting. At least Quinn is still teaching, but his channel Q is going away from what I can see. He said he's going off the grid when I talked to him last week.

I've had 3-4 hobbies that are "historic" or "archaic" depending.... Old timers join, explain how it was done 10, 20, or 60 years ago. It's all "documented" on the forum. Then horrifically, the forum is shut down. Happened to one of my favorites about a month ago. All the questions answered, how do you do this, that, and the other....all lost in the ether again. It's just crazy when people on a forum start "Serial Number lists" and all that crap, thinking the internet is forever. It aint......

It's funny, but at that big tintype auction the other day back east, I won a lot of books on Daguerreotypes. About 6 books, most from the 60s-80s. All their data is still there, on the printed page, safe from time.

paulbarden
20-May-2020, 10:46
Will Quinn make an effort in archiving the entire forum?

I asked Quinn about the deletion of the forum and at no point in the conversation did he say anything about keeping an archive of it. I kinda doubt he did.

On the plus side, he has now made his 2019 edition of Chemical Pictures available as a non-limited edition version, and its much less costly than the limited edition: http://www.collodion.com/shop/vintage-wwii-swiss-army-knife
Most of the more common questions about the process are covered well in this edition. Its an especially useful book if you plant to make collodion negatives and make POP prints from them.

Mark Sampson
20-May-2020, 11:07
An automotive group I belong to (Volvo 1800s) moved its existence to groups.io this year when Yahoo Groups shut down. Perhaps the collodion group could find a home there too, if it's not too late?

Louis Pacilla
20-May-2020, 11:14
Quinn's decision was more about managing costs than giving in to The Facebook Monster eating his audience. Still, its a shame to lose the collodion forum. But as much as I lament the loss of Quinn's forum, there's no way I will join Facebook to access a dumbed-down version of it. Facebook was never intended as an archive, let alone an organized one - its just a streaming conversation. Its tragic that so many well-organized forums with excellent archive features have been ruined by Facebook. I hate what its done to erode the archive-ability of the internet.

I almost ALWAYS agree with your take on things Paul and this is just another one of those times.

goamules
20-May-2020, 11:30
I am talking to Quinn at this moment, and my programmer friends, about getting something set up. I used to be a NASA Sys Engineer, it can be done, and I moderated the forum for Quinn for the past decade.

Two23
20-May-2020, 13:06
I joined the two wet plate FB forums about a year ago, and began actually doing wp last August. Since then it's been about 80% of my photo activity. I started with 4x5 and added 5x7 and 8x10. I'm mostly active on the "Collodion Bastards" but also "Friends of Archer" when it isn't being overtly political. There are two things I notice about these groups. First, there are a LOT of beginners showing up, at least one per week if not three. Second, most if not all the people on the forum seem to be into the arty farty "alternative photography" camp. Me? I'm attracted by the historical aspects but not to the point of being a purist. I use a Chamonix for 4x5 and 1920s cameras for 5x7 and 8x10. I have stuck with lenses made 1844 to 1880 for the most part though. I don't dress up in special clothes unless old ones I don't mind getting stained count. I love to do Civil War reenactments but as you can imagine there are damned few of those in the Dakotas. One of the two has already been canceled this year. (Ridiculous since it's held outdoors.) I'm mostly into photo'ing old abandoned buildings or natural subjects such as waterfalls. I don't see any way I'll get into some of the more offbeat stuff I see on FB. I rarely do portraits either and when I do it's outdoors. For me the FB groups have been very helpful and I have learned a lot. I have been catching the "Q Show" on Youtube the past couple of months. He's very knowledgeable but tends to ramble. I have picked up some pointers that have helped me so I keep watching. I think I've reached the point where I'm not a beginner any more, but certainly have not mastered it. I suppose I'm a "midginner?":D I shoot WP pretty much every week.



---->Wet plate has definitely grown. I can see that even during the past year since I've started. I have a hunch that with some states and places (definitely not mine:cool:) still shut down to some degree, photography could be an outlet that people can still do. I think interest in WP will only accelerate. I'm proposing we start a WP forum right here! Why not? I think the numbers & interest for it is there.



Kent in SD

eabartel
20-May-2020, 18:06
I am talking to Quinn at this moment, and my programmer friends, about getting something set up. I used to be a NASA Sys Engineer, it can be done, and I moderated the forum for Quinn for the past decade.

fantastic. thank you!

eabartel
20-May-2020, 18:06
I joined the two wet plate FB forums about a year ago, and began actually doing wp last August. Since then it's been about 80% of my photo activity. I started with 4x5 and added 5x7 and 8x10. I'm mostly active on the "Collodion Bastards" but also "Friends of Archer" when it isn't being overtly political. There are two things I notice about these groups. First, there are a LOT of beginners showing up, at least one per week if not three. Second, most if not all the people on the forum seem to be into the arty farty "alternative photography" camp. Me? I'm attracted by the historical aspects but not to the point of being a purist. I use a Chamonix for 4x5 and 1920s cameras for 5x7 and 8x10. I have stuck with lenses made 1844 to 1880 for the most part though. I don't dress up in special clothes unless old ones I don't mind getting stained count. I love to do Civil War reenactments but as you can imagine there are damned few of those in the Dakotas. One of the two has already been canceled this year. (Ridiculous since it's held outdoors.) I'm mostly into photo'ing old abandoned buildings or natural subjects such as waterfalls. I don't see any way I'll get into some of the more offbeat stuff I see on FB. I rarely do portraits either and when I do it's outdoors. For me the FB groups have been very helpful and I have learned a lot. I have been catching the "Q Show" on Youtube the past couple of months. He's very knowledgeable but tends to ramble. I have picked up some pointers that have helped me so I keep watching. I think I've reached the point where I'm not a beginner any more, but certainly have not mastered it. I suppose I'm a "midginner?":D I shoot WP pretty much every week.



---->Wet plate has definitely grown. I can see that even during the past year since I've started. I have a hunch that with some states and places (definitely not mine:cool:) still shut down to some degree, photography could be an outlet that people can still do. I think interest in WP will only accelerate. I'm proposing we start a WP forum right here! Why not? I think the numbers & interest for it is there.



Kent in SD

great photo

Jason Greenberg Motamedi
20-May-2020, 19:06
I am still mourning the loss of Szabo's site. I wasn't much interested in their version of authenticity, but the knowledge there was amazing.

6x6TLL
20-May-2020, 20:05
Facebook is a consumer behavioral data mining operation posing behind a social media front.

Most of the professional groups I belong to were previously on Yahoo groups or similar, and have moved to groups.io. Groups.io was founded and written by the guy who wrote Yahoo groups, but with all the improvements and changes he had wanted to implement.

There is a small fee for initial setup, but it's well worth it, and in the other groups we simply asked for volunteer donations and had everything covered in a matter of minutes.

I don't do WP, not sure I ever will, pretty sure I will never dress up in civil war clothing, but I do think it's important to preserve and spread knowledge for others to benefit and learn.

goamules
21-May-2020, 11:51
I am still mourning the loss of Szabo's site. I wasn't much interested in their version of authenticity, but the knowledge there was amazing.

Yep, me too. Remember Morganwerk, Szabo, Dunniway, Claudet, Brewer, and about a half dozen more were true experts at collodion? And back then, they were about the only people doing it world wide! In those days I estimated that there were less than 20 people shooting wetplate world wide! I joined the ranks, and it took me about a year to feel I was "somewhat good", never an expert! Like Two23 says, your an intermediate for a LONG time. I shot every day for 6 months, the once a week for another year. Now...about once ever 2-3 months. But still love it.

The Collodion Bastards....their name pretty much tells your their philosopy: Do whatever you want, no learning required, call any traditionalist names, create a new lens and do hard sales and call it a "Dallmeyer 3B" ... lot's of drama and politics. I quit that FB group after a year. The Wetplate Photography one was good, but the Wetplate Photographer one varies. I know what we need! Let's set up 10 more wetplate facebook groups! (That's pretty much what happened/happens).

By the way, I've gotten the archives for the Collodion dot com site. One day I can set it up as an archive.

goamules
21-May-2020, 12:13
Another thing Quinn started was World Wetplate Day. Me and Geert helped him build the website, I wrote the content, and helped promote it. The goal was to print a book from the submitted plates each photographer poured on that one day, 2 per person. Quinn took the proceeds from the book sales, and bought a new grave stone for Frederick Archer in London. It had become dilapidated and almost forgotten. He and John Brewer (who discovered Archer's death was recorded on the wrong day, it's actually 1 May) had a ceremony to unveil it.

The first year, 2009, there were about 25 plates if I recall. I just checked the wetplateday.org site, it's still there. But many of the first year's galleries are gone. I know the admin got tired of messing with it, so it must have almost died, then got resurrected in 2019 it appears. I'm sure there are hundreds of wetplaters today if not thousands. Much of that is due to Quinn and his efforts.

https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/frederick-scott-archer

https://books.google.com/books?id=iZk5OOf7fVYC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=world+wetplate+day+archer+grave&source=bl&ots=1sXcNE7lHf&sig=ACfU3U3JtZzSA1uORVmLlKz0nsfw15alDA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiyjJaH1cXpAhW-HDQIHSndCbQQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=world%20wetplate%20day%20archer%20grave&f=false

sanking
21-May-2020, 18:22
Facebook is a consumer behavioral data mining operation posing behind a social media front.

Most of the professional groups I belong to were previously on Yahoo groups or similar, and have moved to groups.io. Groups.io was founded and written by the guy who wrote Yahoo groups, but with all the improvements and changes he had wanted to implement.




I moderated a group on carbon printing for many years on Yahoo, moved it to groups.io several years ago when it became apparent that Yahoo had no interest in continuing support of groups. At the time there was no cost to make the switch. Groups.io did a great job of moving the archive of the group, and the move was almost seamless. The platform of groups.io is in my opinion excellent and I would definitely recommend it.


Sandy

goamules
22-May-2020, 11:54
Is there any free hosting available for a SQL database forum, even if it's "locked" for comments, and just readable? I have the archive, now what to do with it?

Two23
22-May-2020, 16:24
Is there any free hosting available for a SQL database forum, even if it's "locked" for comments, and just readable? I have the archive, now what to do with it?


You should consider starting a forum here. There's already a number of us that shoot collodion. Word will get out to the FB crowd and I'm sure a number will migrate here as well. The forum here has lots of LF people and no doubt some are interested in wet plate already but don't know how to get started. This website has been very stable for several decades and has an excellent archive.


Kent in SD

goamules
22-May-2020, 17:06
I'm not sure how I would "start a forum here". There is 16 years of content, uploaded plates, and an entire directory structure that isn't consistent with this LF site. I need a place where I can put it as an archive of all that expertise and guidance. I'm thinking it needs to be free to host, and comments disabled. Otherwise, I would have just paid to keep running it where Quinn had it, and paid the yearly fee. He got out because no one want's to pony up, but everyone likes free content and help.

Two23
22-May-2020, 18:04
I'm not sure how I would "start a forum here". There is 16 years of content, uploaded plates, and an entire directory structure that isn't consistent with this LF site. I need a place where I can put it as an archive of all that expertise and guidance. I'm thinking it needs to be free to host, and comments disabled. Otherwise, I would have just paid to keep running it where Quinn had it, and paid the yearly fee. He got out because no one want's to pony up, but everyone likes free content and help.


I'm not thinking of transferring previous content here but rather starting a new forum. I think it would drive more activity to LF Forums here in general.



Kent in SD

Oren Grad
22-May-2020, 18:14
There is 16 years of content, uploaded plates, and an entire directory structure...

Garrett, how many MB of data is it, all told?

Tin Can
23-May-2020, 04:24
Another question, is how much money does it take to maintain a forum for 20 years at a time

Which is one generation and way farther than any of us can see into the future

of course free moderation is a huge cost saver

goamules
23-May-2020, 14:09
Hi Oren, it is 1.7 GB. Tin Can, I don't understand your question, unless it's some kind of rhetorical statement. Then I still don't understand it.

Tin Can
23-May-2020, 15:09
I was trying to figure out if we all pitch in some money, we could have enough to pay for 20 years of hosting

Oren is onto something

I think

George E. Sheils
26-May-2020, 13:30
Garrett et al, I'm so sorry to hear that collodion website is no more. I know how you feel. As an ordinary member I contributed quite a bit to the pinhole website f295.org until it folded a number of years back. It was devastating for me as I genuinely felt it was such a community and when it was gone it was almost like a bereavement. I know that sounds a bit stupid but you probably know what I mean. While I understand the effort it takes to finance, manage and moderate a forum there is also a huge time and effort input from the members of such fora which just disappears into the ether when a site closes down.

Apart from being disappointing, it's also very demotivating as I decided never again to put quite so much effort into posting on other fora as I did on f295, because one never knows when a site will fold.
I'd rather spend the time making pictures.

Regards,
George.

paulbarden
26-May-2020, 14:03
Apart from being disappointing, it's also very demotivating as I decided never again to put quite so much effort into posting on other fora as I did on f295, because one never knows when a site will fold.
I'd rather spend the time making pictures.

Regards,
George.

George, I completely understand your response, and empathize with you. After 20+ years contributing content to various presences on the Internet, I've come to realize that the WWW is NOT a great place to permanently archive anything of value. If any body of information is to have a life beyond the fairly short shelf life of a web site, it has to go elsewhere: into print, or some other form of physical storage. Once upon a time I wrote vast amounts for my own site and others, only to have the service supporting it retired (Google is often to blame for the early death of a vast number of resources: once Big G decides it is no longer interested in some technology, then its gone). I will no longer put my time and energy into WWW resources anymore, at least not on that scale. Its too disheartening to watch all that work vanish when it is decided its no longer worth supporting.

Which is not to say I don't understand why Quinn pulled the plug on his forum: it had a lot of excellent information archived on it, but it had become so rarely used (sometimes months went by without a single post) as Farcebook seduced so many people into moving their attention there. Such a shame - Facebook is the worst place to put information that has long term value: its all just water flowing downstream, lost in minutes.

George E. Sheils
26-May-2020, 14:31
I agree with all that you have said, Paul. It’s a hard lesson we have had to learn about the impermanence of the World Wide Web. ��

Mark Sawyer
26-May-2020, 18:32
Maybe the most appropriate thing to do is start a new collodion forum. On Myspace.

Two23
26-May-2020, 19:13
Maybe the most appropriate thing to do is start a new collodion forum. On Myspace.


I would contribute.


Kent in SD

paulbarden
27-May-2020, 07:57
Maybe the most appropriate thing to do is start a new collodion forum. On Myspace.

I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or not. My impression is that MySpace is ostensibly for musicians to promote their craft and little else. When someone directs me to a MySpace page, I generally don't bother looking.

Tin Can
27-May-2020, 16:19
The Quinn link below is damaged, a half step to his site with offer, where another click sent me to Amazon. I bought his book with video. I could not retrace the steps, perhaps Quinn is an Internet expert also.

I was going to buy Coffer, however changed my mind.

Thanks for the advice all


I asked Quinn about the deletion of the forum and at no point in the conversation did he say anything about keeping an archive of it. I kinda doubt he did.

On the plus side, he has now made his 2019 edition of Chemical Pictures available as a non-limited edition version, and its much less costly than the limited edition: http://www.collodion.com/shop/vintage-wwii-swiss-army-knife
Most of the more common questions about the process are covered well in this edition. Its an especially useful book if you plant to make collodion negatives and make POP prints from them.

6x6TLL
27-May-2020, 19:21
I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or not. My impression is that MySpace is ostensibly for musicians to promote their craft and little else. When someone directs me to a MySpace page, I generally don't bother looking.

I'm frankly suprised that MySpace still exists, I thought it died a decade ago.

Regardless, it's not an appropriate place for a collodion forum.

I would once again suggest groups.io, you would probably be able to import the existing database directly and pick up where the group left off.

paulbarden
27-May-2020, 19:31
The Quinn link below is damaged, a half step to his site with offer, where another click sent me to Amazon. I bought his book with video. I could not retrace the steps, perhaps Quinn is an Internet expert also.

I was going to buy Coffer, however changed my mind.

Thanks for the advice all

Quinn appears to be consolidating his various web sites, and so things are moving around. I cannot find a link to his 2019 edition at the moment.

Jim C.
27-May-2020, 19:34
This link seems to work, takes you to Amazon -
https://quinn-jacobson.squarespace.com/chemical-pictures-book/

Tin Can
27-May-2020, 21:20
Yes now it does.

It does link to the correct Amazon offer.

Searching Amazon minutes ago showed other older editions which are not this 2020 May 22 release.

Be careful what you buy.



This link seems to work, takes you to Amazon -
https://quinn-jacobson.squarespace.com/chemical-pictures-book/

paulbarden
27-May-2020, 21:55
This link seems to work, takes you to Amazon -
https://quinn-jacobson.squarespace.com/chemical-pictures-book/

Yup, that is the correct edition. Thank you.

goamules
28-May-2020, 11:03
Thanks George and Paul for your impressions of the WWW. They are close to what I noted too. And coincidentally, what the usual argument against digital photography is too. Digital content of any sort is not permanent. Not music sites, formats either. It's why I have a lot of analog in my life. Was reading a book about my home mountains in NC yesterday that my wife handed me. A fairly rare subject, we're doing genealogy constantly. These are the remembrances of a lady that lived in that county in the 1880s-1950s. Written in 1947, the inside is signed by my dad in 1970, when HE was trying to find our roots. That's quite a chain of data and tangible paper. Compare that to the rude, crude, and meaningless comments on ANY news report today, that comprise 96.5% of all digital content being "saved for the future." I'm aghast when I read them sometimes, cruder that what we sailors would say to a hooker in a red light district....all ephemeral on this Great Disinformation Highway. Forums weren't like that, too much.

Corran
29-May-2020, 09:26
Hi Oren, it is 1.7 GB.

Okay, with respect gentlemen, the WWW is indeed an AMAZING place to store information. In fact, it's probably the BEST option any of you have.

Anything in print can be lost in an instant. A properly-maintained digital archive can be forever. Do you want, in 20 years say, for a limited number of books sold to be the only thing left of the technique of WP? I remember the time and energy spent by a friend to find a few WP books from years past, and the money it took to get them.

Of course the "ease" of access and posting makes information less authoritative, but that's a wholly different discussion.

Anyway, as for the above - 1.7 GB is literally nothing today in 2020. I could store over 7,000 copies of the entire forum on my personal home server here. A <$100 hard drive is 4000 GB, available anywhere HDDs are sold.

Here's the question as it relates to the LFPF - how much bandwidth does it have, how much is currently used, and how much would it be increased to have that accessible here (assuming the forum's owner would allow it's storage) as read-only? I don't really know the back-end stuff but I feel like a read-only repository would not be that difficult to implement as a special subforum or link, assuming the data is in a usable format to this php-based forum. I assume the 1.7GB of new data itself would not be a big deal to the storage capacity of the current forum - cheap, bargain web hosting is often 100 GB of storage, and I assume this forum is not on the cheapest plan.

paulbarden
29-May-2020, 11:23
Okay, with respect gentlemen, the WWW is indeed an AMAZING place to store information. In fact, it's probably the BEST option any of you have.

Anything in print can be lost in an instant. A properly-maintained digital archive can be forever. Do you want, in 20 years say, for a limited number of books sold to be the only thing left of the technique of WP? I remember the time and energy spent by a friend to find a few WP books from years past, and the money it took to get them.

Of course the "ease" of access and posting makes information less authoritative, but that's a wholly different discussion.

Anyway, as for the above - 1.7 GB is literally nothing today in 2020. I could store over 7,000 copies of the entire forum on my personal home server here. A <$100 hard drive is 4000 GB, available anywhere HDDs are sold.

Here's the question as it relates to the LFPF - how much bandwidth does it have, how much is currently used, and how much would it be increased to have that accessible here (assuming the forum's owner would allow it's storage) as read-only? I don't really know the back-end stuff but I feel like a read-only repository would not be that difficult to implement as a special subforum or link, assuming the data is in a usable format to this php-based forum. I assume the 1.7GB of new data itself would not be a big deal to the storage capacity of the current forum - cheap, bargain web hosting is often 100 GB of storage, and I assume this forum is not on the cheapest plan.

All of what you say is true, Bryan. But what is also true is this: 95% of all published information (blogs, web sites, eBooks, etc) that I used to refer to 20 years ago is gone from the web. As you say "A properly-maintained digital archive can be forever.", and yet it rarely seems to be done. There has to be someone willing to do the work, and someone willing to pay for it. More often than not, one or both of these things goes missing after a few years. So although there is huge potential in the web for archiving data, it isn't happening as it should.

Corran
29-May-2020, 14:21
I agree Paul. I think we are in a very different world though today, compared to the heady days of 2000, in terms of the internet.

Certainly, I think those with interest in seeing information about wet plate (and large format) surviving should be doing what they can to preserve things. For example - does the owner or any of our mods keep a backup of this forum separate from the hosting service?

PS:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191118180936/http://collodion.com/

Obviously this doesn't really work but just pointing out that "archiving" does exist and can be done today, if you find valuable information, though in a less-than-deal solution for many applications.

goamules
29-May-2020, 15:27
I think the difference between digital permanence and books is that websites are contingent upon the owner maintaining the site, paying the fees, upgrading the servers. The onus is on someone else, and you have to "hope" the site remains up for 20 years. There are very few digital "library of Congress" or "iron mountain" type content hosting sites that will stay around forever.

With a book in your personal library, it is yours, for your life, and then for whoever gets it next. I have a book right over there (pointing at shelf), that was carried by a great, great, great grandfather in the Civil War.

Corran
29-May-2020, 16:42
Well, speaking of the LOC, how many of the wet plate books out there are archived there?

Note that you referenced your personal library. The point here is that your library is impossible for me to reference, or a newbie to reference, until you get rid of it. I sure hope the new books are selling well but I'm guessing they aren't going to be typically found in your local drugstore or the big flea market / used book shop down the line, most likely.

Last year I did find a random book on tintypes in one of the largest flea markets / antique stores in Alabama. I bought it, because I figured I should, and it was only like $10.

Anyway, all things must be maintained, whether it's a digital archive or a physical book. And the question then becomes about access.

rdenney
29-May-2020, 19:40
Moving this thread to the new Wet Plate sub-forum.

Rick "carry on" Denney

Tin Can
29-May-2020, 21:47
Thank you!

Tin Can
4-Jun-2020, 12:28
Ok, got the Quinn book 30 minutes ago

Read Ch 1, the intro

I will be busy for a while

See, ya

paulbarden
4-Jun-2020, 13:10
Ok, got the Quinn book 30 minutes ago

Read Ch 1, the intro

I will be busy for a while

See, ya

Excellent! Bring us your questions when/if you have any.

Ari
4-Jun-2020, 13:33
I'll likely have some questions as well, but they'll come after initial attempts to produce a tintype.
Given that shipping services are now moving at glacial speeds, it could be a while before I post again.

Tin Can
4-Jun-2020, 13:53
Looked at last page, says

"Made in USA
Columbia, SC
31 May 2020"

And was shipped from there by Amazon

this explains how my order placed May 27, 2020 took a while longer that normal

I still think it's Print to order, read this Amazon Ad

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US?ref_=kdpgp_p_us_psg_kw_ad65

paulbarden
4-Jun-2020, 17:46
Looked at last page, says

"Made in USA
Columbia, SC
31 May 2020"

And was shipped from there by Amazon

this explains how my order placed May 27, 2020 took a while longer that normal

I still think it's Print to order, read this Amazon Ad

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US?ref_=kdpgp_p_us_psg_kw_ad65

I'm surprised, but I do think you're correct.