Figure 1.-- This classic American caninet card was taken in 1899. It was a mass produced card for sale, not a family portrait. Notice the decorative lines and corner emelishments.

Classic 19th century cabinet cards were not highly decorated. Here we are talking about the entire front, except for the bottom area with the studio information. Early cabinet cards has framing lines like CDVs. These were common in the 1860s and 70s. Not all early cabinet cards had these lines, but many did. As with CDVs there were variations in these framing lines. They were often absent by the 1880s. They never totally disappeared, but we do not see them much after the 1870s. The fact that they did not totally disappear mans that they can not be used to definitively date undated cards. These were colored lines. We see some embossed lines in the 1890s. You can see an example of embossed lines here in 1896 (figure 1). We notice some highly decorated cards using lines and elaborate decorative cornrs in the 1890s. They were not very common, but we see afew examples. For the most part elaborate decoration was reserved for the back of these cards.

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Created: 1:11 AM 12/20/2016
Last updated: 1:11 AM 12/20/2016