Figure 1.---This cabinet card portrait shows unidentified brothers waring matching Fauntleroy kilt suits in 1895. The boys look to be about 3-4 years old. Notice the bright white mount. Also notice the stylized motif arond the edge of the card. Mother has attempted to style their hair, but it is not long enough to do in ringlets. The studio was D.L. Cook in Fort Scott, Kansas.

A substantial portion of the American cabinets cards we have archived during the 1890s were mounts with whitish shades. Our archive is large enough that we believe this is a reasonable indicator of prevalence. We would estimate that more than half of 1890s mounts had these whitish mounts. Whitish colored cards seem especally popular in the 1890s. Not all cabinet cards had white mounts in the 1890s, but it was by far the dominant color. We see white mounts in other decades, but the white shades were not nearly as prevalent the 1890s. So we can not say that undated whitish cards are from the 90s and this can not be used as any defintive dating tool. The really bright white cards, however, are mostly from the 90s. And this can be used as a likely dating indicator, although certainly not definitice.

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Created: 5:28 AM 7/4/2017
Last updated: 5:28 AM 7/4/2017