Another recent acquisition – Tom Thumb’s Wedding Cake. I love the advertisement on the rear of the CDV. And look at that cake! That could win a reality TV baking competition today. 
I wonder who Hailey was, and why she sent this – was it meant as a suggestion of who to get their cake from?
My latest acquisition- this was quite a surprise to find at an online estate auction: a 5×7 (roughly 1/2 plate) tintype in a gilt 8×10 frame, of an identified Union soldier. This is another case of it pays to do a little research when selling- the subject was misidentified as Thomas Hanks, and the rest of the information present in the label was described as “illegible”. It truly is hard to read, but a few minutes playing around in Photoshop and a few more minutes on the US Park Service Civil War Soldiers database (Search Soldiers) got me the confirmation of what I have. Thomas Adams was killed at the Siege of Petersburg on August 12, 1864. He managed to avoid the Battle of the Crater only to die some two weeks later. 
DC Photo Collector 