Embossed Patent Mark
Across the top of this tintype plate is an embossed patent mark that reads: "MELAINOTYPE PLATE FOR NEFF'S PAT 19 FEB 56."
Peter Neff, Jr., financed a new photographic process that used a blackend sheet of iron rather than a fragile piece of glass to serve as the photographic plate. He patented the process in February of 1856 and the tintype (Neff called it a melainotype) was thus born. Victor Griswold, a rival photographic plate maker patented a similar process in Ocotber of the same year and called his photographic plate a ferrotype. Although Neff's patent predates that of Griswold, the latter's term, ferrotype, eventually won out in the public lexicon. Today, however, the name tintype is nearly univerasally used.
9th plate size tintype, circa 1858.
Embossed Patent Mark
Across the top of this tintype plate is an embossed patent mark that reads: "MELAINOTYPE PLATE FOR NEFF'S PAT 19 FEB 56."
Peter Neff, Jr., financed a new photographic process that used a blackend sheet of iron rather than a fragile piece of glass to serve as the photographic plate. He patented the process in February of 1856 and the tintype (Neff called it a melainotype) was thus born. Victor Griswold, a rival photographic plate maker patented a similar process in Ocotber of the same year and called his photographic plate a ferrotype. Although Neff's patent predates that of Griswold, the latter's term, ferrotype, eventually won out in the public lexicon. Today, however, the name tintype is nearly univerasally used.
9th plate size tintype, circa 1858.