Tipton glass plate negatives found


I am really having an amazing year. I got a call Wednesday night from a guy who asked, "Is this the Tipton expert?" I had to laugh to myself. It depends who I am with. If I am with Tim Smith then, no. But Tim was not there, so...Anyway, I told him "I know a little bit about Tipton" and wondered why he was asking. It turns out he had just bought at auction eight boxes of glass plate negatives from Tipton's old studio and was trying to find out what they were worth. Yow! We figured out that he lives ten minutes from me and I jumped in the car.

He drives trucks for a living and goes to auctions for fun. He bought these boxes of negatives without any idea what they were. Unbelievable. We spent five hours going through everything and I was having the time of my life. It was a real glimpse into how Tipton worked. There were glass plates of every size and dozens of the original boxes. Lots of film negatives. Supplies to make glass slides. You name it.

I knew instantly who should buy this lot. If it were Antietam I would have gone for it, but this collection should be in Gettysburg, I thought. I chose a few plates for myself and got on the phone to a friend who bought the lot sight unseen. Almost as much fun as looking through the negatives was driving to Gettysburg the next night and seeing my friend's face as we unpacked the boxes.

The image above is one I got from the collection. It was marked "Antietam" on the box, but it says "Artistic" on the slide so it may have been misplaced. I don't know where this is. Does anyone have an idea?

BTW, the clarity of the scanned original glass negative is insane, non!?