Album Cover: Hawaiian Landscape | Japanese Garden Album

Portfolio Cover

Dimensions

Support Dimensions: 26.0 x 34.2 x 3.0 cm : overall dimensions of album with enclosed photographic prints

Faux-leather, screw-adjustable photograph album holding 32 individual leaves along with a like amount of protective tissue guards displaying an H.E.P. watermark.

This album is believed to be a variation on what was known as The Regent Album, first manufactured and patented by Felix Reifschneider of New York. The album was first mentioned in 1896 and the following year advertised in The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1897. This version, the No. 4 album, (11 x 14”) featured 25 individual pages (more could be added by removing the screw posts) and retailed for $2.50. The album was advertised as being embossed cloth with rounded corners and leaves but the leaves for this particular version are straight-cut and the cover appears to be faux-embossed leather. One of the options for this album in an issue of The Photographic Times for 1900 (June) mentions slightly-more-expensive leaves for “squeegee photographs” for the 11 x 14” size album at $1.55 for a dozen. Period advertisements for the album can be found as late as 1903.

The following editorial copy for The Regent Album appeared in 1896:

A handy photograph album possessing many novel features has been devised by Mr. Felix Reifschneider. It is constructed in such a manner as to allow the leaves to be readily removed and replaced with little or no trouble and in the twinkling of a moment. The leaves of The Regent Album are fastened by means of small brass tubes, through which are passed metal fasteners. They lie absolutely flat and are perfectly rigid in the back. (1.)

1. The Regent Album: in: The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1896: New York: p. 241