Historically important photo set includes eight negatives in Excellent condition and suitable for printing new photos. There are vintage prints of six of them including some duplicates. Subject is the Porter Box Co., formerly or also the Porter Box & Lumber Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The building appears to have been prior to that the home of the Armstrong Manufacturing Co. as observed in a faded sign high on the side of the building. The Porter Box signs look new. Included with the lot are two business cards for the company and also two accreditation cards for an architect, Jack Charles Bergen. Those cards are dated 1959 and 1960 but judging by the cars in the photos, the photos should be early fifties. Tricky to judge just by that, maybe they all bought a new car in 1949 and kept them. A search on the box company turned up a number of classified results on a newspaper archive site but I didn't sign up in order to read them, I would anticipate most were help wanted. Also the Porter Box & Lumber Co. is listed in a 1935 directory of Connecticut factories found on the State Library website
My best estimation of the purpose is that an old building fallen into disuse was acquired or leased by the box company and the architect worked on the conversion. One of the two unprinted negatives is a shot of what is probably the back or side with a fence and some utility ductwork going into a small out building, this little building in fact is seen from some angle in every last shot so strong chance it is what the fellow designed for them. The other negative of which there is no print is very similar to the photo at top left in the main photo here, taken from a slightly different angle and with a telephone/utility pole in it. I tried to get photos of those negatives, one of them came out well enough that you can kind of see what is in it.
The lot comes in the original photo shop envelope and includes an envelope with the return address of the company, unfortunately it is a post office box, I would like to see if the building is standing today but I don't know the address. If you live in Bridgeport the information can likely be found in library newspaper archives or other, or you might already know. It is highly unlikely that any other copies exist or that any of these have ever been reproduced. In a way they are mundane photos of everyday life, but they also have great historic value and those vintage automobiles don't exactly hurt the value either.
Ideal for newspaper or regional magazine, enough here to easily support a feature story given some research. Unique opportunity.