http://cgi.ebay.com/Photos-Hiram-Wattles-Phillips-World-War-Veteran-/320632465601?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item4aa72f28c1The "W" stands for "Wattles"!
Description:
This lot contains a bunch of photos and negatives that were originally in the possession of the family of Hiram Wattles Phillips, a World War I veteran from Hackensack, New Jersey. Most of the photos are snapshot sized unframed prints, but there are a handful of older mounted cabinet photos and even one small tintype. Some of the negatives are packed inside a leatherette album with tissue pockets, and others are in printed photographic studio envelopes, some with handwritten instructions for making reprints or enlargements. Three of those envelopes bear the imprint or letterhead of William C. Cullen, of New York City; one is an Ansco Film envelope dated 1959 and addressed to H. W. Phillips, c/o Torrance, 1230 Lake Placid, New York. And another bears the imprint of Hasbrouck Photo Supply, Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey.
Very few of the photos are identified, but the one at the upper left in the first picture [I circled and put his initials on it - BL]
below has the following inscription on the back: "Wattles Phillips, 240 State Street, Hackensack, New Jersey. Died 1937. Father's oldest brother." Also on the back is the photographer's imprint - Sarony's Imperial Portraits, 680 Broadway, New York. Napoleon Sarony, of course, was a well known portrait photographer of celebrities in the latter part of the 19th century.
Three or four others contain partially identified components, one being a cross-shaped gravestone with the name "Phillips" at the bottom. Another is an interior shot of a room with a Troy Business College diploma hanging on the wall above a fancy parlor organ. Oh, and one of the cabinet photos of a two-story house has the imprint of W. H. Stillman, Troy, New York, on the back.
There are many other photos with people in them - including a beautiful old studio shot with Niagara Falls in the background - but none of them are identified. Likewise the shots of houses, farms, and bridges, rural scenes none of them identified. Even the nice old car that shows up in several of the pictures is only tentatively identified on one of the envelopes as "Russell's car." There are actually two different cars, one that shows up only a side view on a negative, so it's tough to make out the make. The other looks to be an early 1920's Franklin 4-door sedan, with New Jersey plates (234513) and a very distinctively slanted radiator grille and arch-topped hood.
I haven't counted them all, but I don't think the pictures below show even half of them, although there are some duplicates. The oldest one - the tintype - is pre-1900 and the cabinet photos could also be circa 1900 or earlier. The snapshots seem to range in age from about the 1920's to the 1940's or 1950's..
