Appraisal: Imogen Cunningham Platinum Print, ca. 1910

GUEST: Well, I bought it at a Seattle estate.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: It caught my eye because it kind of looked like a person, the face.

APPRAISER: The photographer, Imogen Cunningham, was born in Oregon, but actually moved to Seattle, where she became a photographer after working with Edward Curtis.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

APPRAISER: So she had really excellent training and hung out a shingle as a portrait photographer.

So I think you really hit the nail on the head when you said that this really feels like a person.

This is a picture that was done very early in her career.

She was born in the late 19th century.

We would date this picture circa 1910.

Later on, she became a fine art photographer.

Do you have any sense of what it might be worth?

GUEST: No, I paid five dollars.

(chuckles) APPRAISER: Five dollars, good price.

Uh, it's a lovely platinum print, a technique that Cunningham studied very seriously.

And a value would be in the $2,000 to $3,000 range.

GUEST: Wow.

That's surprising.