Another photo I need help with!

Graysi

Private
Joined
Feb 19, 2020
This photo is a real problem because I don't even know how to describe it. I bought it about 30 years ago from a couple who had fished it out of a trash can in Beverly Hills. They saw someone throw a bunch of stuff away and when they looked in the can they saw a lot of old photographs so they took them. This was one of them. The person who originally owned it was probably a collector because the photos were not typical of what a family would own.

It's not an ambrotype. It's a positive photo on glass that's been reverse painted on the back (that's why I taped the protective backing on it). The glass is about 1/4" thick. It probably was cased or framed at one time. It's not a crystoleum. I've had those before and they don't look like this. It's almost like an opalotype except it's on clear glass. The size is about a 5" x 7" (I haven't measured it, just guessing.)

I originally thought it was Civil War due to the hat. I've researched it a lot and I still don't know what to think. I'm going to post the original photo then a section that I enhanced so you can see that it's an actual photo. I had to enhance it because the scanner doesn't seem to work that well with 1/4" glass. The hat has an insignia of "BB" with an "S" over that. I can't tell what is on the buttons.

Any ideas what it is? Where it's from? Anything at all? Any ideas are totally appreciated. I really like the photo but I wish I knew more about it.
sailor on glass1_edited.jpg
sailor on glass1_edited2_enhanced.jpg
 
Well, besides being "retouched" (painted), it's clearly a posed shot at a photographer's studio. The cap is confusing me a bit because it looks like a kepi, which was not usual headgear for the Navy; Marines often wore them, but the kid is not in a Marine uniform to my eye. "S"/"BB" doesn't mean anything to me; are you certain they are letters, instead of a design/icon that may look sort of like letters (like, perhaps, an propeller rather than "BB")?

If it's sometime postwar, that might open up some variations.
 
Nothing much to add, other than (1) I don't think it's naval (i.e., I think it's civilian nautical), and (2) something suggests post-war to me. That's not much help.

The "S" cap badge might be unique to a shipping line.
 
I appreciate the responses. I'm not sure if I can change a thread title? Is that something the mods do?

I put this photo in Yandex Image search yesterday. It pulled up a lot of studio shots which is something that never occurred to me. None of the studio shots really looked like ship though. The white square on the bottom of the top photo is actually the tape I used to hold the backing on this. In the real photo, there is wood flooring to the edge. It actually looks like it was taken on a ship!

On top of where/what the image is, I can't figure out what technique was used to make this. I've never shown it to any real photo experts so I don't know what they would say. It's something I've never seen and I've looked at thousands and thousands of photos. (I've collected for almost 50 years).
 
Oddly (or perhaps not knowing my interests), and given what Andy has just said, I wonder if the image depicts a boy cadet on a vessel belonging to a railway company somewhere in Europe rather than the USA. In which case - if it is a letter- the final B could be Bahn. Clutching at straws here a bit.
 
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