Carte de visite Archives of Modern Conflict OR National Gallery of Canada The significance of this card from W.M. Coffrin (No. 2 Perry's Block, Treemont St., Claremont, N. H.) lies in the message in the lower part part. Here it says that negatives are preserved but beneath that:
Ambrotypes, Daguerreotypes and Photographs
copied or worked with Ink, in any style desired.
The importance is that Daguerreotypes and Ambrotypes were unique items and could only be copied by photographing the original object making a single copy. The prints used on CDVs had a negative and allowed multiple copies and this allowed people to replace their earlier photographic formats with a newer one - similar to replacing records and audio CDs with MP3 files.
