After the Safe-Cracker
SOLD September 2014 |
Cabinet-card format photograph showing a burgled-open safe in office setting, anonymous American circa 1900. Dimensions of card slightly under 4.5 x 6.5 inches (11x17 cm).
Safe-crackers circa 1900 were surrounded with something of an aura in popular conception due to their nonviolent but highly skilled and renumerative livelihood. The derelict remains of this once-proud strong box recall O'Henry's story with a safe-cracker hero of 1903, "A Retrieved Reformation," and its mention of a "patented, improved, burglar-proof safe [...] opened like a cheese to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars, currency; securities and silver untouched."
CONDITION: Image has a few brown spots; card chipped lower left corner and top edge center.
