Old photos

(More antique than vintage this time, but I don't want to scatter the tags all over the place.)

I got inspired by Stephanie Ann's post about preserving old photos and went photo-hunting again. And I got some pretty, really old photos really cheap! (Most of them were 20 CZK, that's about one US dollar at this time.)

Thanks to Stephanie's post, I know these all are "Carte de Visite". They're all approximately the same size, although they were all taken by different photographers, in different times, and probably also by a bit different techniques (the last photo at least).

If you click on the photos, you should get HUGE versions of them. I want to give you (and myself!) as many details as possible.

This one is probably the oldest - the style of the dress is - 1860s?


She looks a bit prim, but she has a pretty dress - I love the trim, and the waist detail.

This young lady/girl is probably also from the 1860s?

Unlike the others, she was photographed outdoors. Also unlike the others, this photo has no markings. Notice the girl is most probably wearing her hair in a snood under that hat! And, again, look at the trim. Aww.

This one is, I guess, circa 1867-1870:

Look at that trim again! The buttons! And the hairstyle. Quite a curious hairstyle, now that I see it big.

And c. 1880 - I guess: the wide sleeves and the narrow skirt...

Another lady with a parasol! Unless it's an umbrella. She has quite an elaborate dress and headdress! A wreath thing and a veil. And, wow, she seems to have short hair!
(Iglau is nowadays called Jihlava. They have a beautiful zoo, among other things.)

And I'm not sure about this one - it's clearly the newest - it's glossy, and the writings on the back are in Czech, not German or German/Czech as the previous ones. Also notice the Czech names are written with diacritics, not in the German way like the Doleschal/Doležal above.

I bought this one because I really liked the lady... she feels like someone I would have known, so to say. I also like the way she dressed. A good, simple coat and a bit of whimsiness with the lacy shawl and the headdress. Yup. I like her.

If you have any ideas as to the dates, tell me!

I was very successful today on the vintage front - I also bought a c. 1950 knitting magazine. Complete with the patterns and one single knitting pattern (a cute cap) inside for a good measure. 45 CZK. I'll show you in another post.

It really makes me happy. Reading all about the vintage patterns and pattern magazines on foreign blogs, I was feeling a bit sad - not just that I didn't have any - that's my own problem, after all - but that I didn't know of so many pretty vintage patterns in my country. Feeling that the 40 years of communism had stripped my country of something quite precious. Well, it seems that process took some time and early on, there were still people from the old times in the "business" and took good care of it. :-)