Announcement
Vintage photos, real photo postcards, postmortem photos, tintypes, antique cabinet cards, circus freaks photos, CDVs, historic photos, vernacular photographs with punctum from Phunctum
Punctum “is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me."
―Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
I've gathered these photos - one by one - because something about them draws me in...I hope you'll find something that speaks to you as well. These images may be fun, funky, freaky, haunting, historical, hysterical, beautiful or bizarre. They will always be vintage, original, and scarce or one of a kind.
Follow me on Instagram: @phunctum
Please visit my other shop, veraviola, for unusual, lovely or odd vintage finds:
http://www.veraviola.etsy.com
Items
All Items
Reviews
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uniqueitens36 on Mar 9, 2023
5 out of 5 starsThanks for the beautiful vintage photo and quick shipping!
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uniqueitens36 on Feb 22, 2023
5 out of 5 starsPrecious vintage photo! Thanks so much for the positive transaction!
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Douglas on Jan 30, 2023
5 out of 5 starsExcellent item 😁Excellent service 😁Highly recommend 😁😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀Excellent item😁Excellent service 😁Highly recommend 😁😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀Thanks again😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀Thanks again Excellent item😁Excellent service 😁Highly recommend 😁😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀Excellent item😁Excellent service 😁Highly recommend....The BEST!!!!!!!
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Janet on Jan 23, 2023
5 out of 5 starsThis is a beautiful tintype! This lovely lady is stunning and really dressed up! The tintype is so clear! Thank you! I love it! I will cherish it as I have the other antique photos I have gotten from you! It was shipped quickly and safely! Take very good care! Janet P.S. Did you send me an extra CDV of a cute child? My brain is fogged! My cat, Lilibet, has been very ill. She is going to an overnight vet tomorrow. Thank God!
About phunctum
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favorite photos & rppcs from my personal collection
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Beautiful verso of cabinet card of J F Standiford, only U.S. Licensed Photographer in the Indian Territory (c.1880)
Purveyor of Peculiar Photography
Shop members
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Lori
Purveyor Of Peculiar Photography
Shop policies
Accepted payment methods
Returns & exchanges
Cancellations
Cancellations: not accepted
Please contact the seller if you have any problems with your order.
More information
Frequently asked questions
Re: shipping to Germany
My company, phunctum, is registered at the Packaging Register of the Stiftung Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (Foundation Central Agency Packaging Register – ZSVR) with registration number DE5394738727331. My Dual System Licensing partner for the collection, sorting & recycling of the packaging is ACTIVATE by RECLAY. As consumer please ensure that all received packaging is disposed of in the right recycling containers, Blue for all paper & cardboard and Yellow for all plastics.
Re: postmortem photography (part 1)
Post mortem images are difficult for most of us to look at, and today are often seen as macabre. This is the reason for the warning photo I often insert as the first image in a listing. However, in the late 19th & early 20th century people were, if not less afraid of death than we are now, then at least more accustomed to it. In Victorian and early Edwardian times the infant mortality rate was high and life expectancy in general was far shorter than it is today. Photographs were expensive, and mostly reserved for special occasions. In many cases, no photograph of a loved one (especially a child) existed before they died, so having a portrait made after death was a way to hold onto a visual remembrance of them.
Re: postmortem photography (part 2)
Even a sad memory was better than no memory at all. By the early 20th century mortality rates began to lessen. Many people could afford their own cameras and were able to photograph family members while alive. Having portraits of the living made post mortem portraits unnecessary, and they became less and less desirable. And as for the collectors of post mortem photography, I like the description Ransom Riggs gives in his magazine, mental_floss: "The taboos of sex and death switched places in the last hundred years. The Victorians would’ve been shocked at the erotic images you find everywhere in the 21st century, but didn’t flinch when it came to making images of their dead loved ones.
Re: postmortem photography (part 3)
I’d like to think that the people who collect those photos are just as interested in this lost way of life — or rather, way of death; a set of rituals that now seem alien to us — as they are in the gruesome ghost babies themselves." (www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/83929) Today most large hospital neo-natal intensive care units will offer to take a picture of parents holding their deceased infant. Some professional photographers even donate their time to the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation, which helps grieving parents through the loss of their stillborn or infant children by giving the gift of professional portraiture.