1865 Lewis M. Rutherfurd Lunar Photographs
GUEST: Well, I used to live in Wellesley, Mass. The town dump has a great recycling area, and I wanted some frames for posters. So I picked these up for the frames. And when I got 'em home and saw what they were, uh, we reframed 'em with acid-free paper to preserve 'em, and they've been wrapped up in a closet since about 1986. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: So you've never hung them.
GUEST: I thought they were interesting, and I didn't want the light to destroy 'em.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: And we didn't have controlled humidity. I wanted to take care of 'em.
APPRAISER: Well, the great thing about these is that they're very, very rare. They are made by Lewis Rutherfurd, a man who was known as one of the greatest lunar photographers of his age. So these photographs would have been something that was made for fellow astronomers for scientific use. So they wouldn't have been something that would have been out on the market for just everyday people. And therefore, they would have been made in smaller numbers. And that's why we really don't see that many of them. He made these photographs in 1865, and we know that because he's actually written his name here on the negative and then also put the date here. So what's really interesting about the photograph on the left is, we also know, um, the time of day that they were taken.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: So you have the date here, January 20, 1880. And then you have 8:47 GMT, which is Greenwich Mean Time.
GUEST: Mm-hmm, uh-huh.
APPRAISER: So about 3:47 New York time, which is where Rutherfurd was working...
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: ...in his backyard observatory. We have an inscription on them, as well, because it tells who he gave these to. B.A. Gould. And that would have been his friend, who was another astronomer.
GUEST: Hm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And they were great friends. Such good friends that, after Rutherfurd died, Gould was the one that wrote his memoir. There is some loss here, and that may just be because of exposure to some humidity or heat. It's hard to tell why that happens. But they're old photographs. And that's what happens sometimes. The good news is that the color is just so rich and beautiful. And a lot of times with these albumen prints, the colors tend to get very yellow and faded.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And what we have here are these really beautiful chocolatey tones in the darkest areas. And the highlights are pleasingly yellow. They're not, you know, sort of an acidic yellow that you sometimes see... with older photographs. So they're in really lovely condition. An auction estimate for the pair would be $4,000 to $6,000.
GUEST: (mouths) (chuckles) (laughs)
APPRAISER: Pretty good for a dumpster dive.
GUEST: It is.
$4,000 - $6,000 Auction
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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