Most people have heard of Wallace Nutting’s hand-colored images, many people are aware of the nearly 20 books he wrote, and an increasing number of collectors are developing an understanding of his bench-made reproduction furniture. But as demand for each of these areas has increased in recent years, and as prices for certain Nutting items have moved beyond what some people are willing to pay, an increasing number of collectors have started looking for Wallace Nutting Memorabilia.

What constitutes Wallace Nutting Memorabilia? Simply put, anything related to Nutting that is:

1) This is NOT a black and white or hand colored platinotype image
2) NOT one of the 20 different books he published,
3) NOT your furniture reproduction…

…would be classified as Wallace Nutting memorabilia.

Although most serious collectors will recognize Nutting Memorabilia when they see it, many are surprised at the wide variety of items that are still available to collect. In this article we will talk about Wallace Nutting Black & White Glossies.

BRIGHTNESS IN BLACK AND WHITE: Platinotype images in black and white without color were generally quite dull in color and not bright enough to be used in the higher quality halftone reproduction process needed to reproduce Nutting images on your beautiful states books, advertising literature, other books you produced, etc. As a result, he found it necessary to reproduce smoother, brighter, and brighter images for such purposes.

Literally hundreds of black and white Glossies still exist. But what makes them more unique is that in most cases only one B&W Glossy was produced per image. (When Nutting is considered to have published ten”beautiful states” books, each containing approximately 300 photographs, which alone represent 3000 original black-and-white glosses). As a result, this may be the only way for a collector to locate a specific rare and unusual scene that they want to add to their collection. .

Most Nutting black and white glosses will have several distinct markings on the back of the image, including a purple color”wallace nut“stamp, the title of the image, the size of the image (usually a letter code, for example, “against“), and Nutting Studio number. The rarer the image, the higher the value. Images containing Nutting’s handwritten personal notes on the reverse add even more value.

This article covers just one of a wide variety of items currently being collected by Nutting collectors across the country. If I can leave you with this thought, it would be this: “If this is Wallace Nutting, it will be desirable for Nutting collectors.”