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Ambrotype
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Ambrotype, circa 18??s. Most ambrotypes are not tinted and will have a whitish gray tone, similar in appearance to the tintype. The Ambrotype photo has a low contrast, grayish white appearance and consists of a glass plate supporting a collodion image, which is very similar to its cousin, the tintype old photo (ferrotype process).
The process was announced by the sculptor Frederick Scott Archer in 1851 and quickly became an inexpensive alternative to the daguerreotype. The Ambrotype photo quickly became a favorite of the portrait gallery trade, displacing the Daguerreotype and by 1860, the Daguerreotype was almost completely supplanted.
Yet the Daguerreian process had so captured the public imagination that the term "Daguerrean" was applied to any photographer long after the Daguerreotype had fallen into disfavor by the same picture consuming public.
Just as the Daguerreotype had brought sitting for a portrait down from the rarified air of nobility to the professional or political classes, the low cost of the Ambrotype photo introduced photography to many people who could not have afforded to sit for their portrait at a Daguerreian gallery.
The reduced cost of the ambrotype image helped widen the reach of photography into the American middle-class, which would then be expanded and echoed by two other collodion processes: the "tintype" portrait and "wet plate" photography.
Most ambrotypes were protected by enclosing the fragile glass plate in a small wooden, leather or early thermoplastic case ("Union Case"). (Note: thermoplastic cases are often mistakenly referred to as being made of "gutta percha").
It can be very difficult to tell the Ambrotype and tintype apart. Many tintypes are sold as Ambrotypes. Because the they generally fetch a higher price as an antique or collectible image. On the other hand, many are sold by mistake. Both the Ambrotype and the Tintype share the same whitish-gray low-contrast collodion image.
The difference between the two processes is that the Abrotype is made by coating a plate of glass with collodion and the Tintype is made on a metal plate. If the Ambrotype is removed from its case, the glass plate can be readily seen.
Also the Ambrotype may show a slight shadow or "three-dimensional" look because the glass plate may lift the image up from the background. The Ambrotype is a unique one-of-a-kind image not involving a negative and the image is a mirror-image (reversed left to right) of the original photographed scene.
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