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Photographic Auction Tintypes
The poor mans dag was an image on a thin plate of japanned iron known as melainotype, ferrotype or tintype.
Patented by Hamilton L. Smith a professor at Kenyon College in Ohio to allow people to have a cheaper photo. Instead of a silver coating like the Daguereotype, it used a black japan varnish coated on a thin sheet of iron instead of copper. When multi-lens cameras allowed 4-36 images on one plate..
Leather cases were the most common method of protecting tintypes.