W2502

Pioneers of Communication

Frederic E. Ives & William Dickson

Collins Cover Announcement 

PIONEERS OF COMMUNICATION

FREDERIC E. IVES AND WILLIAM K. L. DICKSON

Frederic Eugene Ives was born in Litchfield, Connecticut in 1856. At an early age he became fascinated with photography and printing. Incredibly, at age 18, he was head of the Cornell University Photographic Laboratory. While at Cornell he began to develope the halftone printing process which used a series of minute dots. His important work is represented on my hand-painted cachet in the form of a human face composed of a pattern of dots. This process permitted pictures in magazines, books, and newspapers to be printed from halftone plates instead of the very time-consuming and expensive hand-carved wood engravings. Inventions by Ives were the trichromatic camera, the kromskop color camera and the hi-cro color processor. During his lifetime he received 70 patents and his work is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution.

William K. L. Dickson was born in France in 1860 and at the age of 19 moved to the United States. In 1888 he began his work in motion pictures with Thomas Edison. The famous inventor entrusted much of his work to Dickson in regard to creating a system for recording and reproducing moving photographic images. This collaboration between Edison and Dickson led to the production of the kinetoscope, the forerunner of the motion picture film projector.

My hand-painted cachet pictures the very first film studio where silent, moving film strips were made. It was constructed by Dickson and was named the "Black Maria" because of its drab appearance. A coin operated kinetoscope is also shown on my cover. Parlors of these machines opened up in major cities and viewers were amazed at such moving pictures as "The Sneeze". The films lasted less than a minute but customers also had moving glimpses of such things as boxing matches, vaudeville acts, and western stars such as Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill. This two-stamp COLLINS complements the previously offered Muybridge/ Mergenthaler (Item #W2501 and still available at $12.00) and is a fine tribute to a pair of gifted pioneers in the communication field. Frederic Eugene Ives and William K. L. Dickson. Item #W2502. $12.00.

Summer 2026 Mail Sale Commentary 

Lot 23 W2501 — Communication Pioneers — Muybridge & Mergenthaler plus free FDC — 2/2/96

Several very interesting Pioneers of Communication are found in this sold:out cover — along with two additional communication standouts in the accompanying FREE FDC. Edward Muybridge was a skilled photographer and was hired to prove that at one point of a horse's stride, all four feet were off the ground at the same time. He found, however, that the photographic process and lenses used in the late 1800s were unable to stop fast motion. From that point on, Muybridge worked toward creating stop-motion photographs. One of his famous early sequences showed a cat in motion, and this is what is shown projected on the hand-painted first day cover along with the zoopraxiscope that he invented in 1880. The second pioneer on this cover is Ottmar Mergenthaler. In the printing industry, many attempts to mechanically set type by hand had been unsuccessful. These futile attempts stimulated Mergenthaler to develop a mechanical typesetter. He did invent such a machine and when Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune saw a line of images produced from the new machine, he exclaimed, "It's a line of type!" Without realizing it, Reid had named Mergenthaler's invention, for when Ottmar patented it in 1884, he called it the linotype.

The FREE cover (still in stock) in this mini-set of two features several more Pioneers of Communication — Frederic Ives and William Dickson. At the age of 18, Ives was head of the Cornell University Photographic Laboratory and began to develop the halftone printing process which used a series of minute dots. Other inventions by him were the trichromatic camera, the Kromskop color camera and the hi-cro color processor. During his lifetime he received 70 patents, and his work is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. Dickson began his work in motion pictures with Thomas Edison who entrusted much of his work to Dickson in regard to creating a system for recording and reproducing moving photographic images. This collaboration led to the production of the kinetoscope, the forerunner of the motion picture film projector.