The Mugshot.
Your crime will be assigned.
A photographic record of your recent misconduct.
In 1814, the new bridge brought an end to the ferry service at Coryell's Ferry. The town was renamed Lambertville. The Constable's Office has since established itself in a photographic studio in Lambertville.
Every mugshot requires a charge.
ARTICLE 1
Made on metal, while you wait
For $175, you will sit for an original wet plate collodion mugshot in the Lambertville studio. Two exposures are made on a single 5 × 7 inch metal plate: one facing the camera and one in profile. A measuring tape records the evidence.
The plate is developed by hand while you wait.
No digital photograph is involved. Your mugshot is an actual piece of photographic history made in the same basic process used in the nineteenth century.
PLATE: 5×7
EXPOSURES: Two. Front and Profile
PROCESS: Wet Plate Collodion Tintype
MADE AT: Lambertville, New Jersey
ARTICLE II. THE DRAWING OF THE CHARGE
Your offence has already been selected.
Upon arrival, you will draw your charge blind.
The Coryell's Ferry Constable's Office has prepared a collection of period-appropriate misdemeanours for the occasion. Your assigned offence might be entirely reasonable. It might also involve a pie.
You won't know which one you've drawn until the record is issued.
Your charge is recorded on the Constable's Office booking card and included with your mugshot. The card is held with an old typewriter ribbon, because apparently that is how these matters are handled.
The charges are fictional. The Constable's Office is fictional. The trouble you are accused of causing is entirely your own.
ARTICLE III.
What you receive
No. 1 - The Plate
An original 5 × 7 wet plate collodion tintype, 2 exposures photographed on the same plate and developed by hand in the Lambertville studio.
No. 2 - The Booking Record
Your booking record from the Coryell's Ferry Constable's Office, with your randomly assigned offence.
5×7 Tintype - 2 exposures Front and Profile
The complete package is prepared as a small photographic record of your arrest. You leave with it the same day.
Mugshots are made by appointment at the Lambertville, New Jersey studio.
Choose a time, show up for processing, and prepare to accept whatever charge the Constable's Office has selected for you.