Help: Old Black and White Photos

[UPRR engineer]

On the bottom of some old photographs, what did they use to write the place and date? White paint and a brush? I'm gonna take some black and white pictures of the inside of the Green River Depot while we are still using it before the UP gives it away. Id like to do the same thing they did back in the old days.

[UPRR engineer]

Maybe a white gel pen will work, have to go look at the scrapbook stores my wife goes to.

[MEC407]

This is just a wild guess, but maybe they used a black pen and wrote on the original negative... that would have produced white letters in the final print. Negatives were quite large in the old days (8"x10" was a common size), so writing on the negative would have been just as easy as writing on the print, and you'd only have to write it once, rather than writing it over and over on each print you made.

If you can't get a definitive answer here, try the B&W Forum at Photo.net:

http://photo.net/bboard/forum?topic_id=1541

[NCPhotographer]

If they wrote on the negative it would have to be written in reverse on the face side or placed on a firm surface to write with the face down. It would seem like either one of these practices would result in possible damage to the negative, and depending on how far back you are talking a picture could have been a very expensive thing. If the negative was damaged all was lost.

I have never actually known what they used, but I have examined some old pictures that had the writing on them, so I would guess it was done by hand on the finished image. If they messed up on the print then they could run another one at a lower cost.

As for using the technique now you might consider liquid paper pens, or see if you can get a white sharpie.

[UPRR engineer]

Went and got a white paint marker, have to see how it goes here. They tested it out for me at the scrapbook store on a picture they had down there, white gel pen didn't work out so good if anyone else is gonna try the same thing.