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What Trim Shops Looked Like in the 1800s

May 21, 2020 By Nadeem

The Hog Ring - What Trim Shops Looked Like in the 1800s

What did auto trim shops look like 150 years ago? See for yourself.

Photographer W. Burman of Fitzroy, a suburb in Victoria, Australia, snapped this photo a very long time ago.

It shows a craftsman and his family standing in front of a carriage workshop. The sign on the workshop is faded, but the words “Bailey,” “Painter” and “Trimmer” are legible.

The Hog Ring - What Trim Shops Looked Like in the 1800s

It’s not clear when the photograph was taken. Our best guess is sometime in the mid to late 1800s. That’s because it’s a carte de visite, a type of micro photograph that was invented in the 1850s, but fell out of fashion by the 1870s.

It wasn’t until 1908 when the first Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line in Detroit, Michigan, that carriages began to be replaced with cars and a new chapter in our craft’s long and storied history began.

Photographer Leigh McKinnon discovered and enhanced this beautiful carte de visite.

Related Stories:

  • Auto Upholstery in the Early 1900s
  • Auto Upholstery in the Early 1900s, Pt. 2
  • Auto Upholstery in the Early 1900s, Pt. 3

Filed Under: Archive, Industry History, THR Favorites Tagged With: Auto Trim, Auto Upholstery, Car Interior

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