Single Border Line
If you read these posts regularly, you will remember that in an earlier post on the double line border I stated that:
We are restricting our research to the double line because a single line continued to be used sporadically for as long as CDVs and Cabinet Cards were produced.
Well now I will have to eat those words — at least metaphorically speaking. First, I’m trying to drop the royal ‘we’ and write in the first person — don’t know where I picked up that habit, but it’s just is not right. Secondly, I shouldn’t make statements about frequency of occurrence for a feature before I actually study it. The results of research on single line borders are quite different from my earlier impression. They have a very distinct temporal distribution, just that it is bimodal, and hence less easily recognized intuitively. That’s why I use statistical analysis to describe the occurrence of these features, rather than relying on impressions.
This study looks at the frequency and temporal distribution of printed single line borders, near the outer edge of cdv and cabinet cards. I did not include card-encased tintypes, as those almost always have lines of some sort and need to be described separately. Nor did I include embossed border lines, as those have a distinct temporal distribution and also need to be treated separately. And the wide, mostly gilt, lines around the very outer edge of cards we have already discussed, so those are not included here.