Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows three siblings, two girls and a boy. They are according to a note on the back, Nellie 6 years 9 months, Amy 4 years and 10 months. and Freddie 2 years and 10 months. Unfortunatly their last names are not indicated. Freddie seems to have a basket on his lap and something in his hand. All three children are wearing dresses. Freddie seems to have a pinafore over his dress. The portrait was taken in 1894. It is a standard cabinet card measuring 6.5 x 4.25 inches. These whitish or cream mounts seem popular in the 1890s.

Cabinet card mounts were done in a range of colors. We note both whitish cards as well as dark colors and a range of shades in between. This is very similar to the colors we have noted with American cabinet cards mounts. The popularity of these colors varied over time and thus can be helpful in dating the cards. Some cards have notations on the back as to names, ages, and dates, but most do not. Thus the mount colors can along with other indicators such as clothing styles help to date the cards. Our initial assessment is that the colr variation is similar to, but not identical with America. Thus our work on American cabinet cards can be useful, but not definitive in dating English cards. We have begun to archive dated English cards to establish some time lines that can help us date the undated English cards in our arcive. We note dark colors like blue, green, and red, but have not yet worked out the dates. We note a dark green card in 1893, but we believe that they were more common earlier. We see a lot of whitish- or cream-colored mounts in the 1890s. Grey as a popular color as we get near the turn-of-the 20th century. The cabinet card portrait here in 1894 is a good example (figure 1).

Blue

We note dark colors like blue, green, and maroon (redish), but have not yet worked out the dates. Nor do we know about the relative popularity of these various colors.

Green

Dark green was one of the popular colors used for cabinet card mounts. It was one of several dark colors used. It may have been the most common of the dark colors based on prevalence, but we can not yet confirm that. Our initial assessment is that these dark colors as a group were most common in the 1870s and 80s. This is largely based on our more substantial American assessment as we do not yet have many dated British cabinet cards. We have found one dark green card which we can reliably date to about 1895. We can not yet say, however, if this was common or an outlyer. As in America, whitish colored cards like white, ivory, cream seem much more common kin the 1890s.

Grey

Grey as a popular color as we get near the turn-of-the 20th century. Our inintial assessment is that grey was most common for the new style cabinet cards that ppeared with the turn-of-the century.

Maroon

White

We see a lot of whitish- or cream-colored mounts in the 1890s. They seem to be especially popular in the 1890s. We ar not yet sure about the various whitish shades in England. The cabinet card portrait here in 1894 is a good example (figure 1). We think there were some with raised printing, but this is diffivult to tell without the originals. We do not yet have a good fix on prevalence, but believe white or whitish sjades were the most common color in the 90s. e hope to work on this in more detail as we acuir more images for our British archive.

Created: 7:56 PM 10/4/2013
Last updated: 4:27 PM 6/23/2017