More than a century ago, pioneering photographers captured images on silver-surfaced brass plates called daguerreotypes. The images were as sharp as anything that can be shot with
modern film, but the process was cumbersome and clunky and -- worse for those with commercial instincts -- the daguerreotype image could not be reproduced. Eventually, somebody came up with a better mousetrap and daguerreotypes fell by the wayside.
But modern-day collectors of photographic memorabilia have fallen in love with daguerreotypes, driving up prices and thus interest in this particular type of old stuff. As with any collectible, prices tend to have a correlation with the rarity and aesthetic appeal of the item.
Now, what is being billed as one of most exciting antique photographic finds of the past two decades is about to be sold to the highest bidder at the Albany Auction Gallery in Glenmont, N.Y. Several articles in this collection of daguerreotypes are expected to draw collectors of antique photographic memorabilia from across the country.
Creating the most interest are four stereo daguerreotypes depicting street scenes of San Francisco in 1856. These images of the city by the bay in the post-gold rush era are believed by experts to be the only stereo daguerreotypes known to exist of American street scenes.
Because they are stereoptic, they offer a three-dimensional view. The images are the work of Robert H. Vance, who had the premiere photo studio in California in the mid-19th century. "Essentially, he was the Mathew Brady of California," said Peter Palmquist, a photographic historian who resides in Arcata, Calif.
The stereo daguerreotype expected to spark the highest bidding at the March 4 sale depicts Sacramento Street in San Francisco from a vantage point believed to have been the roof of Vance's gallery. The shot is thought to have been made in 1856.
There are also two images of San Francisco's City Hall, also believed to have been captured in 1856, showing stagecoaches and a theater billboard announcing the appearance of actress Laura Keene. A decade later, she would be entertaining President Abraham Lincoln and his party at Ford Theater when John Wilkes Booth shot the president.
The photographs were consigned to the auction house after they were discovered in Vermont recently, said Robert Meringolo, co-operator of the Albany Auction Gallery. They passed through a couple of sets of hands before making their way to an unidentified dealer who brought them to the auction house, he said.
Mr. Meringolo would not identify the consignor of the photographs. Mr. Meringolo said that though he has not yet advertised the sale in nationally circulated antiques periodicals, he has received inquiries from museum curators who would like to have the Vance images in their collections.
He said a 19th-century photograph of a Cincinnati street scene brought $63,000 when it was sold at auction last year. The stereo image of Sacramento Street could bring $70,000, he estimated.
Because the market in daguerreo types is so specialized, he said, "It's something that 99 percent of antique dealers wouldn't recognize as having that kind of value." He likened the find to discovering a previously unknown poem by Edgar Allan Poe or a painting by Thomas Cole or Vincent van Gogh.
Edward Schillaci of Rensselaer, N.Y., an antiques collector who specializes in Americana and who is assisting the Albany Auction Gallery in preparing for the sale, concurred. "I don't know of any artifact of the Old West that can give you as clear a representation of what it was like than this artifact does," said Mr. Schillaci.
Mr. Schillaci said the collection may have wended its way to Vermont through the family of an associate of Vance, Ira French, who had ties to the Green Mountain State. Included in the collection is a portrait of Vance and another portrait of a chemist, whom Mr. Schillaci believes is a young Vance.
"These are certainly as unique as paintings," said Mr. Palmquist, in predicting that prices for noteworthy daguerreotypes will continue to rise as interest in them grows.
The whereabouts of the work that Vance was best known for -- his production of about 300 large daguerreotypes of American gold fields, made during the height of the gold rush -- remains a mystery, Mr. Palmquist said. "He brought them in rosewood frames to an exhibition in New York City, and they have not been seen since shortly before the Civil War," he said. "If they could ever be found they would be worth millions."
Check the attic.