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They used to be just the stuff of flea markets, but now early phographs are detting their due. Dennis Waters of Exeter is a full time broker of daguerreotypes, some going at fine art prices. His web site is an excellent place to learn about the early history of photography.

VISIT Dennis Waters' Daguerreotypes web site

Old photos have come of age -- again. Until recently daguerreotype portraits were just poor cousins to more collectible antiques. Even dealers specializing in early photography focused on scenery, architecture, portraits of famous people, odd-duck images and post-daguerreotype prints. While portrait paintings commanded high auction prices, early posed photographs were still just heirlooms, relegated to bargain bins and flea markets.

Hang onto your top hat. This week a daguerreotype reported to be of a young Abraham Lincoln, is being offered on eBay for $10 million. The young man in the photo may not be Lincoln (see www.LincolnPortrait.com) and the daguerreotype may not find a buyer, but that's no flea market price.

The "Lincoln" image is an aberration, of course. We know who Lincoln was and, if authentic, this could be the earliest known photo of the popular President. If not, it's still an excellent picture of a young man in a chair. While not shooting for such astronomical prices, the new breed of daguerreotype collectors are determined to show how rich – in history and investment value – these unique images are.

In the last few decades, a select group of as few as two dozen dealers and collectors, have focused their attention on the earliest of photographic images that flourished and faded in the mid 1800s. The collectors held their own camera shows annually, expanding the database of daguerreotype research. Shows in the Boston and New York region, expanded to Chicago and California and elsewhere in the last few years. A Daguerrian Society (www.daguerre.org) with 1,000 members has built up recently calling itself "the world's fastest growing photohistorical group." Their web site is a treasure chest of information, rich with photo galleries, advice, research info and background on inventor Louis Daguerre (born in 1787), his process, his era, his factory and his influence.

THE WEB SITE MAKER

Dennis Waters of Exeter got the daguerreotype fever in the summer of 1985. At first it was just a slight flu. He collected a few "six frame" images, photos meticulously printed on copper plates clad with a layer of silver, framed in brass, protected by glass, lined in felt and encased in wood. He bought a few more, traded some, sold a few. As a professional photographer himself, Waters could see the artistic skill and technical quality of these earliest of photos. The first American portrait using the French process is dated 1839.

By the early 1990's Waters was selling daguerreotypes in his own catalog. Separating himself from the pack, he focused on images of extra quality and, in the process, created his own system for rating and pricing images. In 1999, after 22 years as a commercial photographer, he took the leap and became one of a select few full time daguerreotype dealers, relaying almost entirely on the Internet to display and market his merchandise.

Visitors who click to Waters homepage (finedags.com) are struck by an exquisite image of young girl with her dog. It's immediately evident that this portrait is a work of fine art. The pose, the background, the flesh tones and fabrics all lead the viewer's eye back to the young girl's face. Anyone who has tried to find a good image from a range of yearbook or wedding photos can appreciate what this 1850s photographer could accomplish with primitive equipment. Posers were often prepared for an hour in advance of the shot, then required to sit perfectly still for 10-15 seconds to allow enough light in to expose the plate.

"I pick them visually, on how much I like the image, on how well or poorly they were made," Waters says. "I have established patterns in my mind after 17 years as to what they are worth."

Because scanners love photos and the Web renders black and white images so well, potential buyers can study the online gallery photos in detail. Waters selects only a few images with great care, following the rating system he has devised. Separating himself from most dealers, however, Waters is unwilling to sell at auction, including online auctions. He neither buys nor sells on eBay. In an era when 150,000 people are now making their living on eBay, he has chosen to go it alone, creating his own system, developing his own customer base, pricing on his own terms.

And the prices may surprise. While some images start at $100, most are in the thousands, some even tens of thousands of dollars. Waters describes the photo subjects in romantic, emotional prose, drawing the buyer in to the work like the owner of a fine art gallery. While historians may balk, concerned that Waters is driving daguerreotype rates skyward and out of the range of most collectors, he is candid and unapologetic about his pricing system.

He expresses a deep personal relationship with each image, and then passes that feeling to the buyer. An picture of a young Emma Thayer in his current online "salon" shows a shy pre-teen in a flowing new dress posed upright beside a classic plaster column. Her cheeks are rouged slightly in the touched up daguerreotype. She holds a blue photograph case in her hand and looks into the camera with a mix of trepidation and hope. Looking back more than a century, Waters titles the image "Never Married", attaches an $1,800 value, and waxes poetic over not just the skill of the photographer, but the life of the subject. Poor Emma, he notes, died at just 35, the phrase "never married" etched into the portrait by a loved one.

THE UP SHOT

Think of photography as a sort of pre-Civil War Internet. Within hours of the arrival of the technology from France in 1839, Americans were learning and speeding up this new technology. Amateur daguerrians bought the lethal chemicals and lenses and constructed wooden cameras and opened their own shops.

"Many, many, many people did it for one year," Waters says. "They bought the equipment, did it one year and folded. Many dageurians died or got sick from the chemicals."

"Have you been taken?" people said to one-another on the street as the craze spread. "May I see your likeness?" This was the mid-19^th century version of "Are you online, yet? Can I have your email?"

By 1860, the daguerreotype rage of the 40s and 50s began to fade. Cheaper, simpler processes had evolved using glass and tin and then paper negatives. Pictures could be reproduced again and again with fast shutter times and in artificial light. Then the populace learned to "Kodak" their own images, portable film photography and now digital imagery evolved.

Waters, however, has remained in the past, his world halted sometime in the calm years just before the Civil War. He can lose himself, he says, in these photographs. They are, he insists, works of great value, and at the same time – priceless.