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Tin Type

Tintype, also called ferrotype , positive photograph produced by applying a collodion-nitrocellulose solution to a thin, black-enameled metal plate immediately before exposure. The tintype, introduced in the mid-19th century, was essentially a variation on the ambrotype, which was a unique image made on glass, instead of metal. Just as the ambrotype was a negative whose silver images appeared grayish white and whose dark backing made the clear areas of shadows appear dark, so the tintype, actually negative in its chemical formation, was made to appear positive by the black plate.

The tintype process was first conceived by Adolphe- Alexandre Martin in 1853, shortly after Fredrick Scott Archer invented the wet-plate collodion process, and was later patented in the United States and Great Britain in 1856. Almost identical to the ambrotype, which uses glass instead of metal, the tintype quickly caught on in America as the photograph for the masses. It was fast, cheap, mobile and much more durable than other processes available at the time. A tintype can be coated, sensitized, exposed, developed, fixed, washed, dried and varnished in less than 10 minutes. This nearly instant form of photography became accessible at outdoor fairs and carnivals to those who couldn’t afford to get a photograph taken in a private studio. The tintype was the most common photographic process until the creation of the gelatin based processes introduced by Kodak in the late 1880’s.