World War 1 photo album. One of a kind chronicles??

[Maj.Nick Danger]

So I find this sort of make shift picture "album" at a local antiques place. Consists of plastic picture sleeves from Woolworth's just wired together. 180 pictures total. Price was right,...and there was just something about the whole thing that intrigued me, the uniqueness of it. There are pictures of Paris, the Eifel Tower, some places in Belgium, various weapons of the war, vehicles, ships,...just about everything from one soldier's tour of duty. Just after hostilities had ended as there is a sign which mentions "The army of occupation" in the background of one shot. Also I found the camera which I am about 99.9 percent sure was at least one of the cameras used to take these photos. A Kodak model 3 which used 122 roll film, 5-1/2 inches by 3-3/8 format, just like the prints.
All cool enough in itself, a really amazing find for sure.
However, when I was really looking at the pictures closely, I saw one in particular with the unmistakable profile of General John Pershing! Sure enough, I turned this print over, and unlike most of the others, there was a pencil notation that reads, "Pershing walks between guards". Also it's a snapshot type picture, taken from some distance and hurriedly composed. There is also one other picture featuring Pershing.
So now the question in my mind is, "Do I have something here of real historical significance?" Perhaps pictures that were never published before?

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German POWs

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[LocktownDog]

I don't know how unique it is. But WOW! I would love to have it on my coffee table!

 

[MrNewportCustom]

One hell of a find, Nick! :eusa_clap


Lee

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Yes indeed! And I think I have yet to realize the full import of this. Here is another picture from the set I found seperately.

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The caption here reads,...."You'd think these guys are real soldiers but they never heard a shot fired."

It's printed in postcard form. I'm wondering if this was a common practice back then? Seems to have been so. I have a few pictures that were taken by my grandfather that were printed from his glass plates onto postcard stock.

 

[byronic]

This is fabulous, Nick! it amazes me when things like this turn up after all this time. definitely one to cherish.:eusa_clap

 

[vitanola]

We still have Grandfather's photographs from the Great War, including, in most cases, the negatives. He used a Kodak No. 3A autographic camera, which we still own. the collection consists of about two-hundred images, taken at Camp Funston, on ship-board, at an aviation training camp, in Edinborough, and then behind the lines in France. He was an aviator, and was intensely interested in automobiles, and so we have many, many images of all sorts of aircraft, mostly British and French, and lots of pictures of cars and trucks. he has other interests, too, and so there are a suprising number of snaps of Madamoselles, and a few Fraeuleins encountered during his brief period with the Third Army in occupied Coblenz.

We also owned a similar group of memorabilia from the estate of Christian Rath, a Civil War officer of German extraction who lived in Jackson, MI, and who was the jailer and executioner of the Lincoln conspirators. The grouping included about sixty photographs, some of which were by Brady, dating between 1858 and 1913, several hundred letters, most either dating to the War period or discussing aspects of Rath's war service, and an interesting group of medals, GAR items, ansd personal effects.

This grouping was sold for a pittance in the 1980's so that a certain person could afford an to take attractive young things out to expensive bars.

I have never exactly been a of the Prohibition party, but can nonetheless understand Carrie Nation's motovation.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

We still have Grandfather's photographs from the Great War, including, in most cases, the negatives. He used a Kodak No. 3A autographic camera, which we still own. the collection consists of about two-hundred images, taken at Camp Funston, on ship-board, at an aviation training camp, in Edinborough, and then behind the lines in France. He was an aviator, and was intensely interested in automobiles, and so we have many, many images of all sorts of aircraft, mostly British and French, and lots of pictures of cars and trucks. he has other interests, too, and so there are a suprising number of snaps of Madamoselles, and a few Fraeuleins encountered during his brief period with the Third Army in occupied Coblenz.

Very similar to my collection then. I have pictures from France, Belgium, all different subjects from troop trains to trucks and ships, encampments and barracks,...and the local population. Seems there was a certain contingent that was inducted into the war just as it ended, so that they could go over with their 3-A Kodaks and just take a sort of photographic vacation courtesy of Uncle Sam. Extremely lucky guys, having just missed the carnage that WW1 was!
This picture is really striking to me. It reminds me of the subjects of Monet and other French Impressionists.The photographer had an eye for art.

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[PADDY]

Fabulous!

I'm really envious, what a magnificent find!!:eusa_clap

 

[Minerva]

It's printed in postcard form. I'm wondering if this was a common practice back then? Seems to have been so. I have a few pictures that were taken by my grandfather that were printed from his glass plates onto postcard stock.

I suspect the postcards were a common way of getting photos off to the folks back home. My cousin has been busily scanning in the ones our grandfather sent back to his mother from his stint in the Navy during WWI -- mostly of him goofing off on the ship.

Great find, by the way! :eusa_clap

 

[H.Johnson]

Fascinating. Postcards were indeed a standard way of printing photographs at the period.

I collect WW1 postcards. My grandfather used to send hand-made postcards back from the fronts to my grandmother and mother (he was in Flanders for most of the war and later Italy) and some of them (particularly the hand embroidered ones) are works of art.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Here's another I had to post as it stands out from the rest. One of only a few posed portraits in the collection. 3 officers in various uniforms. The Captain on the left looks like he may have been an aviator? The leather coat would seem to indicate that but it's hard to say.

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