1890's photographic developing chemicals

 Yesterday I posted the following on Mastodon, which I'd turned up in a drawer while documenting the contents of Dow's pharmacy

and which garnered a fair degree of interest. 

It's not the whole story - in fact we've got two slightly different packages from the same period

the second one being labelled tank developing powders. 

Both boxes are cardboard, approximately 75x75x20mm and are black with a white design. Amazingly enough both appear to have their contents intact, which gives us a problem

My project is simply to document the contents of the old pharmacy - we don't have a conservation lab on site or any specialist facilities to handle potentially hazardous material. In fact it's just me, so there are limits as to what can be done.

In cases like this it's simply a case of a visual check to confirm the contents are present and then carefully repack them and return them to their location after photographing the box and contents.

Stylistically I'm dating the boxes to the 1890's - but,  as designs didn't change much they could be Edwardian in date. Crucially neither of the boxes have the post 1907 Eastman Kodak logo

Illustration (c) DesignHill

which suggests that the boxes pre-date its introduction.

Of course, these boxes were produced by Kodak Australasia and the chronology of their packaging may differ from that of the US and Europe.

The Wodonga historical society has a tin in their collection which holds some photographic powder packages that appear similar to those in our cardboard packages that they date to the late 1800s early 1900s which fits with my dating hypothesis, but Museums Victoria hold a box that looks similar to the Dow's tank developer box that they date to the 1930's.

One crucial difference is that the Dows box is priced at 1s and the Museums Victoria box priced at 1s6d, suggesting that the Dows box may predate the Museums Victoria box