Add a Daguerréotype Giroux to your camera bag
Are you bored with your photography lately? Think you’ve mastered all your gear and looking for a new challenge? Instead of upgrading your body and glass think about taking a step backwards with your gear. Way back to 1839!
In 1839 no one had heard of Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Kodak and the other manufacturers that we are familiar with today. Then, for a very short time, the only source of professional photography was from Alphonse Giroux and his brother-in-law, Jacques Daguerre. From this pair came the world’s first commercially produced camera, the Daguerréotype Giroux. It is credited with “the initial spark that began the worldwide spread of photography”.
There are only a few of these cameras known to be in existence and all are stored in public museums…except one recent find. For the first time one of these cameras will be presented at auction, by the Viennese auction house WestLicht. The sale is scheduled for May 29, 2010 at their location in Vienna, Austria. WestLicht does not state who the owner of the camera, only that it belonged to a family in northern Germany and was passed to the current owner by his father as a gift for passing his final apprenticeship as an optician. They also state it is in beautiful original condition, even coming with the original written instructions.
The outstanding original condition of the 170 year-old apparatus is remarkable. Every detail including the lens, the plaque signed by Daguerre himself, the black velvet interior and the ground-glass screen are in their original state.
The unique camera comes with the extremely rare original instructions in German with the title: “Praktische Beschreibung des Daguerreotyp’s”; published by Georg Gropius, Berlin 1839, 12×20cm, 24 pages with 18 illustrations in 5 plates showing the equipment used for producing Daguerreotypes in accordance with Daguerre’s invention. On the back of the little book there are two handwritten notes from 1840 with details of the process.
For comparison, a similar camera built by Susse Frères, also in 1839, was auctioned by WestLicht Auctions in 2007 for 576,000 Euros (~$800k) and set a record price for any camera at auction. This auction is set to break this record. It is estimated to bring in 500.000 – 700.00 Euros (~$700,000 – $1,000,000).
Hey! We all knew this photography hobby was going to be expensive so buck up and make a bid.
A quick search of the term daguerreotype in the WorthPoint Worthopedia, a collection of over 50 million auctioned items, returns quite a number of interesting items. Daguerreotype photos, cameras, tripods, and even lens seem to have been a popular collectible over the past few years. Photos from subsequent versions of the daguerreotype cameras are especially collectible like the image below taken during the Civil War sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s.
If you are interested in more on the background, history and the science behind the Daguerréotype Giroux, I’ve included information from the WestLicht’’s press release after the jump.
