Rhinoceros Tintype

Sixth-Plate Tintype. Unusual image, possibly from a show painting, or a photographer's backdrop at a carnival "mug-joint" (photographer's booth). Tintypes were an extremely cheap form of photography that lent themselves to carnival and fair souvenirs as they were easy and quick to make. Beginning in the 1860s, but persisting until about 1920, tintypes were the most popular form of souvenir photography until the popularity of the real photo postcard exploded in about 1907.