A gift

I received a nice gift in the mail yesterday (though the friend who passed it on insists I consider it "a redistribution of crap" instead, I can't help but think of it as a gift). Uh huh, what is it? It's an old photo album a friend said his mother picked up in Berlin in the 60's. Not sure how to date the book itself but it seems to have been designed for carte-de-visites. Big leather binding with a coat of arms and flower motif embossed on the front. Actually reminiscent of some daguerreotypes I have. And it's full of someone's family portraits. All cabinet cards, mostly what look like albumen prints but a few that I suspect are platinum. I'm tempted to pull them out to see if any are dated and to look at the studio imprints on the backings which are always interesting. The pages are really brittle though so I hesitate to do that. That said, it's a nice addition to my collection.