Glass plate image

[MEPER]

In a box of old family negatives I found a small glass plate image. Not far from 24x36 in size. Maybe 24x40 or so.
It turned out to be a positive and not a negative as I expected. Was that normal for glass plate images?
I decided to put power on my CS 9000ED and see if is was possible to scan it. The glass plate could fit (but not perfect) in one of the holders.
It was quite fun to see an old image coming back to life. Glass plates had its "sun set" in the beginning of 19XX ?     so image could be from about 1900. Difficult to date it but persons are too old for any living family members to recognize the people.
I wonder if the decline of glass plates was seen as a setback in quality by "nerds"?
Now with digital sensors we have some sort of glass plate back and are free from "curly" film!   

[Birna Rørslett]

Well before WW1, apparently. The slides might have been used for projection?

Photographers weren't nerds those days. More like miracle workers or artists. Or perhaps they had time to discuss the finer points of glass plates vs film roll.

[Alaun]

That is probably at the train station in Holsted Stationsby?
It seems to look almost the same today.

I like these old pictures.

[MEPER]

That is probably at the train station in Holsted Stationsby?
It seems to look almost the same today.

I like these old pictures.

Yes, that is "Holsted station" in Jutland. There was some kind of family there many years ago. I looked up "Holsted station" to be sure and building looks the same. The old signs has gone and the people and probably also the sleeping dog :-)

[MEPER]

Well before WW1, apparently. The slides might have been used for projection?

Photographers weren't nerds those days. More like miracle workers or artists. Or perhaps they had time to discuss the finer points of glass plates vs film roll.

The glass plate is so small that only projection seems to make sense. I don't think BW positive paper like a BW version of Ilfochrome existed at that time?

[Ann]

Birna is correct.
Your small glass plate was almost certainly a Lantern Slide which would have been used in a Magic Lantern projector.
It was normal practice to print a positive onto these glass slides from the original negative.
 
During my Photography course at Guildford College of Art, we had to learn how to do this.
In the mid 1950s one could still purchase the emulsion-coated 3.5" x 3.5" glass slides and their accompanying plain glass cover-slips. (European lantern slides were of a slightly different size)
After processing the Slide, you covered the emulsion side with the plain glass cover; then bound the edges with gummed black paper tape and added a white spot in one corner (so that the projectionist inserted the slide in the correct orientation).

[MEPER]

What I thought was a bit strange was that when I scanned from emulsion side the result was reversed. So I had to "ask" Vuescan to reverse the scan. I double checked and looked at "slide" from "blank" side (through the glass) and "slide" is reversed which is not the case looking at a normal slide or negative.
Maybe this makes sense the way this kind of slide is produced?