Posted By:
D BrownI would bet that they're lantern slides -- mass produced -- not original negatives. Tons of lantern slides around, they were like stereo views, a way of seeing the world in the pre-TV, pre picture-press era. (Never seen any baseball ones -- anyone else?)
Glass negatives were used between the 1850s and the 1920s, though had started to go out of use by the very early 1900s with the invention of the Kodak & etc. Lantern slides had a briefer flowering.
David