Cabinet card

Some cabinet card images from the 1890s have the appearance of a black-and-white photograph in contrast to the distinctive sepia toning notable in the albumen print process.

However, when the renowned American Civil War photographer Mathew Brady first started offering them to his clientele towards the end of 1865, he used the trademark "Imperial Carte-de-Visite".

Early in its introduction, the cabinet card ushered in the temporary disuse of the photographic album which had come into existence commercially with the carte de visite.

For nearly three decades after the 1860s, the commercial portraiture industry was dominated by the carte de visite and cabinet card formats.

However, the public increasingly demanded outdoor and candid photographs with enlarged prints which they could frame or smaller unmounted snapshots they could collect in scrapbooks.

The type of card stock or whether it had right-angled or rounded corners can often help to determine the date of the photograph to as close as five years.