Amazing Trove of Ansel Adams Glass Plate Negs Rescued From the Fate of Many.

Ansel Adams Negatives Bought At Garage Sale For $45   Worth At Least $200 Million BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP)   Attorney Arnold Peter says a trove of old glass negatives bought in California for $45 has been authenticated as the work of iconic photographer Ansel Adams, worth at least $200 million.  It was believed the work had been destroyed in a fire decades ago. The negatives were bought 10 years ago at a garage sale in Fresno by painter Rick Norsigian, who noticed they resembled Adams' famed photographs of Yosemite and hired Peter to assemble a team of experts.

 

Note to all of my brothers and nieces and nephews: If you let my thousands of negatives, transparencies, internegatives and prints get to a yard sale, I will come back to haunt you. I know I ain’t no Ansel Adams, but… just sayin’.

As hard as it is to believe, hundreds of thousands of old glass plate negatives were sold for scrap glass and used in greenhouses all over the country (including most of those exposed by Civil War photographer Matthew Brady and his many assistants.