antique plate printing?

[nealjpage]

So I may have the oppertunity to produce prints from antique glass negitive plates that an aquaintance bought at an auction. Are there any special steps to do this? I know I've got to be careful--they're one of a kind (or at least I imagine they are) shots of buildings from our college campus that have been demoloished over the past hundered years or so. Our darkroom has Besler 23 enlargers and so far I've only found negitive holders for 35mm film. Do I need to find special holders or will this enlarger not work with glass plates? Thanks.

 

[ksmattfish]

How big are the plates? A Beseler 23 isn't going to handle a plate much bigger than 3" x 3".

I have seen prints that were enlarged from plates, but most examples of printing from plates that I run into are contact printed.

You can probably find some plate shooters over at apug.org.

 

[nealjpage]

Hmm. Not sure of the size. I'll have to ask. I guess I didn't think about contact printing. I suppose that's easier--less risk of scratching them, right?

 

[Hertz van Rental]

A lot of old glass plates are 5x4 and above so you don't really need to enlarge them.
You just have to be careful not to scratch the emulsion side. And watch out for breakage - some glass plates I have had experience with were only about 1.5mm thick.

 

[nealjpage]

Were most of these plates used for contact printing originally? Or did they use enlargers at the end of the 19th century?