Ebay

[archie57]

Some interesting slides on ebay , not sure that British waterways around in 1910.........

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Glass-Magic-Lantern-Slide-PAIR-OF-CANAL-BARGES-C1910-OLD-PHOTO/112935616406?hash=item1a4b7cbf96:g:UDsAAOSwDCxa0HaT

[Ray T]

Well spotted, thank you.

 

[roland elsdon]

Well they would have to be joshers and wasnt the first diesel 1912?

 

[Rose Narrowboats]

The seller has two slides of the josher butty, which must be a maintenance boat from the condition of it.

There was a scruffy josher butty on Hillmorton Section still in FMC colours in the 50's. A passer by gave me a photo of it moored on our wharf taken from up the drive by his father.

I think the other photo could be taken from on top of bridge 30 looking south.

[Derek R.]

The image linked to is certainly not 1910. Some of the others offered for sale look to be set up, so to speak. The gent in a bowler holding what might be a childs coffin is superimposed on the print - his feet are clearly not 'of the towpath', and he casts no shadow. The boat MARY is also in that showing a woman lain on the towpath coping in another. Theatrical slides?

[carlt]

I rather like this early clonecraft one.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Glass-Magic-Lantern-Slide-GROUP-BY-CANAL-BARGE-C1910-PHOTO-EDWARDIANS/362288861725?hash=item545a19521d:g:7WQAAOSwAz5aiseV

Icebreaker conversion?

[Ray T]

Derek, the "doctored" glass slides are from a book called Tom the Boater - A Tale of English Canal Life." From Victorian times, where Tom was bullied by his widowed father and his sister looks after him. The book was published by a Tract Society to illustrate the hard and difficult life of the "uncivilised" boat people. The gent in the bowler comes to Tom's aid, a George Smith of Coalville type character.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Ray T

[alan_fincher]

How common was taking photos on glass plates by the time of BTC / BWB?

I realise some of Robert Longden's excellent images were on this media, but was it by then still commonplace, or really rather rare?

[Derek R.]

I can appreciate the story line, though the image I had in mind, and which my comment was referring to was this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Glass-Magic-Lantern-Slide-TOM-THE-BOATER-NO38-C1890-CANAL-BARGE-MAN-VICTORIAN/112940094503?_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D49131%26meid%3D63c9e158a52f41c98b92e591446edf15%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D112935615699%26itm%3D112940094503&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982

The men are facing each other, yet both have the Sun at their backs! But I don't suppose the audience noticed.

Some excellent images taken on glass plates by American Railroad photographer O. Winston Link can be seen here, though as a commonplace method of capturing images it must have been somewhat dated, though still favoured by a few:

 

 

[Athy]

How splendid. Those Norfolk & Western Mallets in full cry must have been a sight and sound to behold. From memory, the N&W held out against the tide of dieselisation until the early 1960s.

Nice version of the Everly Bros. tune by a guitarist whom I have long held in high regard, Leo Kottke. It's hard not to have time for a musician who says that he doesn't sing because "My voice sounds like geese farts on a muggy day".

[Ronaldo47]

Glass plates for cameras and for making lantern slides were still available in the late 1960's. A school friend who became a chemist working at a CEGB power station, took me round it one Saturday. The chemistry lab had a darkroom and the official cameras, and his boss, who happened to be in and knew that I had an old plate camera with a sheet film adaptor, gave me a box of Ilford FP4 glass plates, another of FP3 sheet film, (both still in date) and a box of 2" x 2" Kodak glass lantern slide plates.