Tintypes

The tintype, properly a ferrotype, put a collodion image on a thin sheet of lacquered iron rather than tin. Introduced in 1856, it was cheap, nearly unbreakable and could be finished within minutes, which suited itinerant photographers, fairgrounds and army camps. Civil War soldiers sat for them in large numbers. Because the image is a direct positive it appears laterally reversed, so lettering and buttoning often read backwards.