There is generally no such thing as an American Civil War cabinet card photo! Cdv, yes, as well as ambrotype and tintype.

Well, yes and no.

Actually, famed photographer Matthew Brady started to manufacture what became termed Cabinet Cards in 1865. He called them Imperial Carte de Visite. (They were called Cabinet Cards in England, and that became the popular name.)

 But it was not until about 1870 that Cabinet Cards became available to the picture-hungry American public. And they continued to be sold until nearly 1900.

Simply speaking, the Cabinet Card was a larger form of albumen image mounted upon card stock that offered a closer look at facial features, scenery, clothes and accessories.

The cards are typically sized 6 1/2" x 4 1/4." There were some other specialty sizes, such as the longer Imperial (different than Brady's) card, that are seen less often but do turn up in antique Victorian photo albums and collections.

Certainly, many Cabinet Card photos were simple portraits.

But the Cabinet Card was offered a superb display for the height of Victorian period fashion. Ladies in lovely bustle dresses could display every fancy detail in these new larger images. You will see lovely women in hats covered in frills and fancies, beautiful buttons on dresses, huge bustle skirts, elaborate jewelry including brooches and cameos and lockets. Men often displayed gold pocket watches, or at least the chain emerging from jacket or vest. Men also displayed the new style of large mustache that became a Victorian male staple for the fashionable gentleman

Props also played a larger role in the Cabinet Card photo with photographers setting up elaborate scenes in the studio using iron gates, fake rocks and logs and tree stumps, bales of hay and scattered grass, elaborately constructed window and doorway sets for clients to pose in.

As America recovered from wartime deprivations and more elaborate merchandise became readily available to the middle class, the Cabinet Card documents the clothing, jewelry, and objects that Victorian era people treasured.

You will see more toys, dolls , even bicycles and tricycles appearing in images.

Furniture  plays a more prominent role in these images, from fanciful chairs embellished with woodcarving to later Victorian white wicker chairs and tables and divans.

Pets continued to be featured in Victorian Cabinet Cards, often alone without a human in the shot!

The Cabinet Card photographer also documented Victorians in the out of doors, such as in a parade on a decorated float.  The new magnificent Victorian architecture and buildings were also photographed including civic buildings, schools, churches.

A favorite time of year to have your Cabinet Card sitting in the 1870s-1890s was at Christmas time, when they would often be given as gifts to family, friends, and classmates. Thus, you will see inscriptions from the giver on the reverse of many Cab Card images, such as "To Ella, From Lucy, Xmas 1898."

To meet the changing times, photographers sold larger Cabinet Card photo album with larger slots for these images. Cabinet Card albums could be purchased with leather, velvet, or even the new celluloid covers.

Take a look at the large selection of antique Cabinet Card images on Ebay.