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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Topic started by: kawabata on Friday 01 February 13 01:57 GMT (UK)
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I know this photograph is from 1883, however, I am not sure whether it is from the US or Europe. If it is from Europe, it is most likely from some part of Germany or Poland. If from the US, probably Ohio.
There appears to be a label or stamp at the bottom in green, but I can't make out the text. I've included a second zoomed in view of this text.
The photograph measures
2.5 inches wide by about 4 1/8 inches tall
It is printed on a fairly thick card stock
The corners are rounded
Thanks for the help!!
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Tough one, but I have an idea.
First, for the zoomed-in bit, did you just enlarge the original scan or did you rescan the bottom of the photo?
What I'd like to see is a very high resolution, say 1200 or so, of just the green printed word at the bottom. Put the photo back in the scanner, drag a box around the word so only that much gets scanned, and select a high resolution. If you could do that, it might confirm what I think :)
Cheers
China
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Does this help China?
Carol
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Okay great, Carol...I see this:
Ф O T O Г
That's F O T O G
In other words, definitely not Ohio ;D
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Looks like it says Ohio to me.
jim
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I agree with China,
Very definitely ФОТО...ОЛДЬ. But very INdefinitely the middle bit! :)
Russian...
Adrian
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Thanks, Adrian :)
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I agree with Adrian - and that was before I could scroll down and read the replies.
I've tried to work out what the full word might be, but nothing I think of has the right ending. :-\
Nell
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Isolated the green and desaturated to show it more ...maybe China .... :-\
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Brills, Polldoll :)
Think the rest of it is
ГОЛДЬ
GOLD and then the unvoiced soft letter that looks like b.
Gold, or Goldie as Google Translate has it.
Seems to be a couple of periods in it.
Apparently there are a few letters eliminated in the early 20th cent (probably by the Bolsheviks ;D) and one of them is I. Because there's another I that looks like the backward N.
So...Fotog. I. Gold?
That's as far as I can take it :P
Cheers,
China
....the poor little kid on the chair looks like he's about to fall off :P :P ;D
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Most of the American Photographers have name, studio address, and place of business i.e. Boston, New York or Chicago, etc.. I do not think the photograph is American. Notice the shoes of the two children, the one child with the female buttoning system, and as Chinakay states the boy is about to fall off the chair but it looks like both children have the same style of shoes!
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Unfortunately there is no specific Russian suffix - ГОЛДЬ that I know of, unless it is being using as part of a name. If you say this set of letters, it would sound like gold, but the Russian word for gold would be transliterated as 'zoloto'
But the letters of this word are definitely Cyrillic. I think the photo is Russian in origin.
Nell
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I don't know whether this will help...A Russian Cabinet card I posted some time ago:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,624982.msg4730688.html#msg4730688
Carol
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Unfortunately there is no specific Russian suffix - ГОЛДЬ that I know of, unless it is being using as part of a name. If you say this set of letters, it would sound like gold, but the Russian word for gold would be transliterated as 'zoloto'
But the letters of this word are definitely Cyrillic. I think the photo is Russian in origin.
Nell
I just plugged it into Google Translate and "Goldie" is what it gave me :)
Kawabata thought maybe Poland. I think chunks of eastern Poland would have been under the influence of the Cyrillic alphabet. Gold is definitely a name, mainly Jewish, all over Europe. We've seen photos from Europe on here with a notation at the bottom like Fotog. Inital Name.
Cheers,
China
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Thanks for all, sorry I was away for a week. Very interesting.
The town that I know they were in in Europe was called Schirwindt, Germany - it was a total border town. I always thought they were German, but the town was also controlled by Russia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kutuzovo,_Krasnoznamensky_District,_Kaliningrad_Oblast
I think what you guys have done is excellent detective work. After reading all of the posts, I am comfortable that you have identified this as Russian. Really impressive!!!
Thanks so much for all of your contributions!
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actually, what about this???
Адольф
This means Adolph and it was his name (recently learned). You mentioned: ОЛДЬ, which seems fairly close
Lining them up:
ОЛДЬ
Адольф
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Hiya!
There definitely isn't an ф, though, at the end. And his name wouldn't be included in the photographer's stamp.
If you look at Polldoll's enhancement of the stamp there's definitely a Г before the rest of it... ГОЛДЬ. That would be the photographer's name or at least the last few letters of it.
I'm sticking with that :)
Cheers,
China
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I'm with China on this. The letter ф is at the very beginning and does not appear again. It is definitely ГОЛДЬ towards the end. The middle 'letters' are a right muddle but might (I really stress the word might) be ?.T.
Russian names were often just the initials followed by the surname e.g. V.I. Lenin. So what you might have here is an abbreviation of the word for Photographer, followed by X.X. ГОЛДЬ and he was either German or of German extraction, but his name was written in cyrillic letters.
Just a thought.
Nell
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Yes, exactly. I'm thinking his name was actually Gold, being a very common German/Jewish name. Same in German, Yiddish and English.