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Photo album

You have a photo album. Photo albums have been around since the 19th century, appearing on the market in many different shapes and sizes, and for different purposes, over the years.

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‘Insert albums’ were produced for cartes de visite at the start of the 1860s, and a bit later also for slightly larger cabinet cards. Self-adhesive photo albums, in which you could stick pictures not mounted on cardboard, were also available back then. The pages were either sewn, glued or tied together with a cord.

Postcard albums were very popular in the 1910s, and the first ring-binder and spiral albums, which came with plastic sleeves, appeared from 1950.

Picture stories

Photo albums often contain portraits or memories of significant moments in a family’s or place’s history, and the order of the photos and pages can play an important role in interpreting this history. These are stories that are valuable in themselves because together they form a whole, so make sure you don’t take your photo album apart or mix up the pictures!

Did you know …

… some albums have metal staples, clips or glue that can harm the photos? You should therefore remove and replace them with durable, non-harmful materials such as acid-free paper.

Read our storage tips here.

Dive into the world of photo albums:

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