Hunter with Military Percussion Musket

[Shotgun Steve]

Cased ambrotype
Photographer unknown, ca. 1855
2005.007

This nattily dressed hunter is holding a military-style percussion rifle musket. The case is made of a thermoplastic, often called gutta percha, which was one of the first of the natural plastics to be used commercially. An ambrotype image such as this is actually a glass negative made positive by placing it in front of a black background; it is also a lateral reverse image, in other words, a mirror image of the actual photographed scene (thus, the lockplate appears to be on the left—wrong—side of the weapon).