Candlestick Antiques / Flea Market

The Candlestick Park Antiques & Collectibles Faire opened today in the parking lot of San Francisco's Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco 49ers. July 18, 2010 was the opening day for this new San Francisco flea market, and a welcome addition to the Bay Area's flea market scene. The SF Chronicle had a nice article on them yesterday, and if all goes well they'll be happening the third Sunday of every month. I went to this inaugural day to see what photographic treasures might be found, and I was not disappointed.

I found 3 photolithographs (also called Photochroms) made by the Detroit Publishing Co. of Detroit's Belle Isle park. The Library of Congress has some info on them, and the Wikipedia entry on Photochrom is another good resource. Photolithographs are a rather unusual process, and I have not found many of them in my years of antiquing. Here's two of the prints that I found:

And here's what they look like under magnification!

I also found a nice overpainted salt print

And a nice example of image transfer on a matte collodion print, the result of the catalytic action of the platinum in the image which converts sulfur dioxide into sulfuric acid and turns the paper brown where it is in contact with the image (at least that's my current understanding!):