I found a great box of photos last week, and I decided after looking through them that they were worthy of a separate post. If old photos aren’t your thing, I’d suggest skipping it!
For the scrapbooks I often tried to capture a full page at once, mainly to save time on my end. Unfortunately though it’s hard to take pictures like that without having some of the photos disappear in the glare. Next time I might do things differently, like take pictures of individual photos and then make them all into a gallery, though I’m not a big fan of WordPress’ gallery format (it’s not very intuitive for people who might want to zoom in for a close look). Still, it might be the easiest way to share a bunch of photos at once, and I think the editing would be easier as well.
Of course scanning is the best way to capture an image, but it’s also the most time consuming. Maybe at some point I, or someone else will take the time to carefully scan these images.
Anyways, below is a small sample (~10%) of the photos included. Most of my favourites are here, but there’s a lot of great photos that aren’t shown as well.
I found the box in one of Montreal’s wealthier neighbourhoods, and based on the photos I’d guess that this specific family has had money for quite some time. It was sitting next to a bunch of stuff that probably came from a basement.
The box also contained some old recipe books, some of which (like the 1949 Scouts cookbook) were pretty cool. You’ll be able to see them if you come to my next yard sale.
A lot of my favourite photos were in the black albums – most of them are around 100 years old. This one’s titled “Scotland – 1908?”
This is one of my favourite pages from that album. I’ve never seen a collection of portraits quite like it!
It’d be a great skill (superpower?) to be able to recognize where any photo was taken. At the very least it’d be a lot easier to market specific photographs on eBay! Maybe technology will be able to do achieve something like that someday, but in the meantime let us know in the comments if you have any information about these photos.
My favourite album was titled “[Guy’s name] 1917-1935”.
Most of the early photos look to have been taken at the Royal Military College in Kingston ON.
Click on the photos and zoom in if you want a better look!
I don’t think there was any lack of activities at the college.
I like the photos of the obstacle courses, mainly because of how makeshift they appear.
These photos (I presume of training facilities) were taken around the end of WWI. I’d guess that none of the people showcased in these albums ever made it to an actual battle. Regardless, it’s interesting to see that horses were still being used by the military at the time.
These photos are from the end of that album, presumably taken at least a few years after the war. They were shot at a photo studio in Dominion Park, an amusement park that existed up until the mid-1930s in Montreal’s east end. Here’s a great web page if you want to learn more about Dominion Park.
There were a couple of photo albums from the 50s and 60s, but most of my other favourites were found loose in small boxes or inside envelopes. I found two tintypes (bottom left), my coolest of which is the portrait with the bikes. On the right is a photo of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip that was probably taken around the time of her coronation (it’s also worth noting that someone doctored the photo to remove a lot of the background).
The photo at top left is interesting; I can’t claim to know much about the many different types of Native dress, but certain elements (particularly the pants, and some of the floral designs) bear some resemblance to what Nipo Strongheart (picture) used to wear. He was an early Hollywood actor, lecturer, and advocate of Native issues. However this is certainly not my field of expertise, please post any insights you may have in the comments!
A couple of these photos feature women in uniform, something I don’t think would have been seen before WWII. The photo with the dog is cute, and the postcard photo was taken in Nice.
I also saved some very old portraits that date back to the late 1800s. The names of a lot of these people are written on the back, which is good for a variety of reasons. The guy on the left looks straight out of the American Civil War.
These are maybe my favourite photos of the bunch. They’re all a bit larger, measuring around 8.5 x 6.25″. They’re signed “Notman and Son”, likely referring to the studio owned by well-known Canadian photographer William Notman. These date to sometime around the turn of the century, when exactly I can’t be sure. Perhaps someone familiar with the fashions of the time could help date it a little more specifically. Regardless, they’re very cool photos that I think would look great framed together. I would bet that, of all the photos in the box these will end up being the most valuable.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed all that! It’s been a good few weeks for found photos, that’s for sure.
I hope to have another yard sale this weekend but as of right now the weather is looking pretty iffy. If the forecast improves I’ll post an announcement telling you where to go.
Relevant links
1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to Garbagefinds.com
Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.