Historic images of Albany going up for auction in June

Rare images of Albany will be auctioned off to the highest bidder as one of the nation’s most significant and historic collections goes up for sale.

With photos from the 1880s through to the 1940s, the Rose Stereograph Company Collection has more than 100,000 items including photos of King River, Stirling Terrace and Dog Rock.

“The photographers from the Rose Stereograph Company travelled all around Australia and ... the world capturing points of interest, local landmarks, important historical buildings,” Lloyds Auctions’ Amanda Benson said.

“I really love the image of Stirling Terrace — you’ve got the band that’s marching down the main street with those stunning cars, the street absolutely lined with Model Ts, business booming.”

Also in the collection is an 1880 photo of Ned and Dan Kelly’s Armour, the Gallipoli landing of 1915 and Phar Lap winning the Melbourne Cup.

Ms Benson said the Albany collection gave her a sense of “natural beauty, vibrant economic prosperity” and “togetherness”.

“Given that the photos were taken from the 1880s through to around the 1940s, what is says to me is that it was a very vibrant town 100 years ago, there was a lot of community there,” she said. “The town’s obviously grown a lot but looking back at those photographs there was a lot of community spirit back in Albany in the early 20th century and late 19th century.

“You’ve got that stunning photo of King River where you’ve got a couple of people rowing a boat.

“In a lot of ways what surprises me the most is how much we’ve stayed the same. You’ve got people coming together as a community then as we do now.

“There are a lot of very special landmarks contained in these glass plate negatives and a lot of them are still there, but obviously the architecture the cars, the people’s clothes all of that has moved on.”

Bidding for the Albany pieces will run online at Lloyds Auctions until 7pm on Saturday.