Hi Suzanne, I am trying right now to identify a family photo, so I've been searching the internet to find ways to "date" this old photo. I found this site: http://www.genealogy.org/~ajmorris/photo/photo.htm It says: "The tintype was introduced in 1856, and enjoyed widespread popularity until about 1900. The tintype gets its name from the fact that the image is produced on a thin metal plate. Like the Daguerreotyp and Ambrotype, the emulsion was directly exposed in the camera, without any need for a negative, so the images are often unique. (In later years, cameras with multiple lenses were developed so that as many as a dozen tintypes could be exposed at once.) During the 1860's and 70's small tintypes were often placed in CDV sized cardboard mounts." Pam Haithcock