I believe all of you must have antique photos of ancestors and family that you would want to take good care of. Antique photographs describing particular events or people have great importance and value to collectors.
Taking care of antique photos is very important because if they are not taken care of, then apart from losing value that they may include, they also can literally fall apart right infront of our eyes. Never disclose antique photos to sunlight directly. Direct sunlight is not good for photos. The sun rays will make the photos fade so much that you won’t be able to make out what picture it is after some time. Ambient and artificial lighting is always recommended for antique photos.
You should be very careful in handling the photos, make sure you do not bend them. When you bend an antique photo, you will see a permanent mark on the photo which is not good. As many antique photos are on a material like card board, it the photo is bent it breaks the picture and your photo is ruined.
It is not necessary that all antique photos have high importance and value. There are particular events that photos are captured and that are worth compared to other photos. For instance, an antique photo of a wedding ceremony is worth more compared to any other random picture. And it is obvious that photos of famous people like Abraham Lincoln have great value. But even wedding ceremony photos have distinguished values, the value of the photo goes up if there are more people in the picture.
If the people in the photo are from richer class, then the value of the photo is more than if it were from lower class family. Though this is not fair, it is the truth. But it is all about detail as opposed to differentiation I believe.