Victorian Photograph Albums

A typical cheaper carte-de-visite Floral album with the wording on its back cover mistakenly printed upside-down. Contains several gold-rush Australians from New South Wales and Victoria and four good portraits by T. & R. Annan of Glasgow. You can also hunt for the Welsh Sherlock Holmes impersonator…

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An album in amboyna – a rare wood from Indonesia, highly valued in Victorian times. Contains some bicycles (scarce in the Moustache Museum – there are many collectors of bicycles out there) and portraits by aptly named photographers Clickfold of India and Oscuthorpe of Scarborough.

An album decorated with quails and other birds. Within are a lot of Americans politely holding rather than wearing their hats and some Cambridge University blades in blazers by Hills and Saunders, one of the most prolific photographic firms of the Victorian age.

An ordinary-looking album but one filled with wonderful military portraits including a lone Swede, some dapper Bulgarians, Americans with their blunderbusses, a Scotsman in his kilt and a cornet player posed in front of a captivating backdrop.

A German art nouveau brown leather album. Like most European albums this has pages for boudoir (extra-large) cabinet photographs, Paris Panels and tall, thin cartes-de-visite. Contains one of my all-time favourite photographs – some German pranksters in traditional costume. 

Where in the world are Nakskjov, Eskilstuna, Sergiev Posad, Ballater, Zehsis, Walk and Copiapó? Discover all in this packed album. And do look out for one Walter Kirby Winter and some very early cdvs from Peru and Chile…