WorthPoint® Purchases HistoryInPhotographs.com
WorthPoint Corporation has purchased the assets of HistoryInPhotographs.com (HIP), a digital repository and e-commerce site for more than 50,000 historic photographic images of American life dating from the 1860s. The company was founded by WorthPoint CEO Will Seippel in 2017 and includes his 40-year collection of photographic negatives.
Seippel started assembling his collection in the 1980s. It is full of historic black and white images of American life, ranging from the most iconic moments in U.S. history to the little-known, largely unseen instances of ordinary life. The images were acquired by Seippel in negative form through estate sales and auctions, often in unmarked lots and boxes, then hand-picked for cleaning and research.
The History in Photographs team of artists digitally restores the negatives, cleaning away decades of dirt, blemishes, and discoloration often buried in the original emulsion when the negative was created. HIP’s modern prints are made using the latest digital technology and offered for sale beginning at $24.99 on the site.
HistoryInPhotographs.com is also an informational hub for those who want to learn more about collecting photographs and negatives. It includes articles and video interviews with curators, appraisers, historians, and other experts to tell the story of the collection and to offer guidance for budding photography collectors.
“The collection really captures the emotion of this country as it grew,” said Seippel. “It visually tells the story of what life was like for people of all backgrounds in towns across the United States. Like the other WorthPoint databases, this one helps preserve history and teaches people the stories behind their items and moments – it’s a powerful resource for people to enjoy.”
Seippel also points out that this is both a technology and media play: “Printers from 100 years ago were not able to capture all the detail that was in a negative. When HIP prints from an antique negative today, the result is a cleaner, more detailed image than the photographer saw 100 years earlier. The images are so dense and content-rich that wallpaper images can be printed from them for interior decoration.” The company plans to offer a full product line that will include being able to place yourself into a 100+-year-old image.
In November 2020, Allison Radomski joined the company as curator of photography. She will continue to catalog and manage the company’s assets as it is folded under the WorthPoint corporate umbrella.
About WorthPoint Corporation: WorthPoint manages the largest online resource for researching, valuing, and preserving antiques, art, and collectibles. The company’s suite of offerings on WorthPoint.com includes a Price Guide, a resource gallery for identifying maker’s marks, autographs, patterns, and symbols (M.A.P.S.), and a digital Library with over 1,400 books on collectible topics. Through data aggregated from online marketplaces, including eBay and leading auction houses, WorthPoint empowers the antiques and collectibles industry by providing a steady stream of new data each month, building on more than 549 million archived prices and nearly 1.3 billion images to improve pricing transparency for sellers and buyers. WorthPoint is headquartered in Atlanta and has subscribers on six continents.
Media Contact
Mary Eitel, MKE Communications, +1 678-733-1535, mary@mkecommunications.com
