Two more tintypes. Soldiers?

Graysi

Private
Joined
Feb 19, 2020
I've had these two cased tintypes for awhile. Could these be soldiers? The one that looks like a riverboat captain is a Sixth plate; the other is tiny, barely larger than locket size.

riverboat captain tintype1.jpg
boy88 tintype2.jpg
 
Doing a little internet research, I found a photo labeled "Rare Civil War Era Tintype of a River Boat Captain Circa 1863" with a man with the same kind of hat like the first tintype. Does that seem legit? Do the clothes say anything to you guys?
 
The top man appears to wear a cap similar to a US Navy officer cap but with out tha normal Naval officer insignia and with out rank stripes.
 
In my reading on the hat yesterday, I found that style came out in the early 1800s in Europe. It was associated with seamanship and maritime settings. I found a couple of cased photos online of river boat captains with the plain dark cap. One of them was the captain of the Sultana. Unfortunately, I couldn't find many photos for the boats on the Mississippi River.

His vest appears to have some sort of a tab on top. Does that mean anything to anyone? I've never seen a vest with a tab...
 
Doing a little internet research, I found a photo labeled "Rare Civil War Era Tintype of a River Boat Captain Circa 1863" with a man with the same kind of hat like the first tintype. Does that seem legit? Do the clothes say anything to you guys?


They always ( always ) always say " RARE ". That generally means the seller has no clue on the planet what on earth the photo may be but is hoping desperately no one else does either- and the RARE part will be worth some extra coin. I'm not sure the hat would have to mean anything on the water. It could, it's just that other occupations seem to have the same kind?

IMO, for what it's worth, top image is pre-war by quite a bit, like 5 or more years? Bottom image, ( and I'm terrible with uniforms ) buttons close together seem to indicate military, he's awfully young. like 14, 15? That means nothing, plenty of kids that age went to war.
 
JPK --

That particular style of hat only came about in the first quarter of the 19th century. If you do a search for "Mariner's cap history," you'll find a lot more about it. Since the photo is a cased tintype, I would guess it's 1860s. Earlier images are more likely to be dags or ambrotypes. Now, it could be an image from Europe, which is totally possible, but it's usually not likely. I was hopeful someone would know more about the vest but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Until I joined this forum, I had no idea there were so many boats on the Mississippi river during the Civil War. Somewhere in my book collection, I have a book about the Navy in the Civil War -- but I moved about 15 years ago and all my books are in boxes so I have no idea where that book is. It might have something about the riverboats.

And yes, people call everything rare. I actually specialize in antique porcelain and I can't tell you the number of "rare" common items I've seen. It's just like people thinking everything old is valuable. It's not. Somethings are rare, some are hard to find, some are valuable, and some are just "old stuff." Long ago, I realized that the value of something is what someone is willing to pay for it. Those book values mean almost nothing in the real world.

Anyhow.... I think the Riverboat captain tintype probably is rare since I was only able to find a couple of examples of that on the entire internet. It's certainly not a common image or we would see more examples. If they are out there, I haven't been able to find them. But, I keep looking!
 
I think the Riverboat captain tintype probably is rare since I was only able to find a couple of examples of that on the entire internet. It's certainly not a common image or we would see more examples. If they are out there, I haven't been able to find them. But, I keep looking!

So it IS rare? That would be amazing and how annoying they've so over-used the term that it now means something entirely different, when you see it posted with a picture! Interesting! Wonder what title you could use? And OH yes, my son's a blacksmith, husband scouts for anvils and tools etc. WELL. Any old, rusted, beat to dirt, broken bit of iron or steel has the most horrendous price tag- because it's ' old ' and always, always ' rare '. So they make their own tools.

If it's not annoying to be told to go back to some very old stuff- you probably read Twain as a kid? Maybe re-read him. His riverboat days look entirely different to me as an adult than they did reading of them as a teenager. NOW it's possible to really get a good look at the Mississippi and those riverboats, and what the traffic was like. It all went right over my head the first time around, seem to remember it all as just background to the characters.
 
I got a laugh out of the blacksmith tools! I've seen "rare" barbed wire -- but who collects barbed wire? Once, about 30 years ago, I saw a salesman's sample case of glass eyeballs with about 30 eyes in it. I wanted that case so badly but it was just too expensive for my pocketbook. Another time, a shop in Barstow had a tintype album full of armed cowboys, etc. but they wanted $2K for it. Everybody wanted it but no one could afford the $2K. It eventually sold as it was a very fine unusual album. (I would say it was "rare.")

So, yeah. Some stuff is rare and extremely desirable.

Anyhow, I'm going to keep looking for info for the top tintype. The bottom one is a really cute kid. Too bad no one thought to put a little slip of paper with his name on it. Or they could have written his name right on the case!
 
I got a laugh out of the blacksmith tools! I've seen "rare" barbed wire -- but who collects barbed wire? Once, about 30 years ago, I saw a salesman's sample case of glass eyeballs with about 30 eyes in it. I wanted that case so badly but it was just too expensive for my pocketbook. Another time, a shop in Barstow had a tintype album full of armed cowboys, etc. but they wanted $2K for it. Everybody wanted it but no one could afford the $2K. It eventually sold as it was a very fine unusual album. (I would say it was "rare.")

So, yeah. Some stuff is rare and extremely desirable.

Anyhow, I'm going to keep looking for info for the top tintype. The bottom one is a really cute kid. Too bad no one thought to put a little slip of paper with his name on it. Or they could have written his name right on the case!
Samuel Clemens wore a similar hat.

mark-twain-4.jpg
 
I got a laugh out of the blacksmith tools! I've seen "rare" barbed wire -- but who collects barbed wire? Once, about 30 years ago, I saw a salesman's sample case of glass eyeballs with about 30 eyes in it. I wanted that case so badly but it was just too expensive for my pocketbook. Another time, a shop in Barstow had a tintype album full of armed cowboys, etc. but they wanted $2K for it. Everybody wanted it but no one could afford the $2K. It eventually sold as it was a very fine unusual album. (I would say it was "rare.")

So, yeah. Some stuff is rare and extremely desirable.

Anyhow, I'm going to keep looking for info for the top tintype. The bottom one is a really cute kid. Too bad no one thought to put a little slip of paper with his name on it. Or they could have written his name right on the case!

I have some barbed wire in a display that says it was from the Czechoslovakia border during the Cold War. It is a pretty cool piece! There is also a decently-sized barbed wire market on ebay.
 
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