Holborn Stamp Camera with back open showing septa 
to make nine gem-sized images on a quarter-plate

Holborn Stamp Camera with single plateholder in place; 
ground glass back resting on camera's front panel

Shown in the image to the left is the camera and the accessories necessary to operation: the original ground glass and plate holder, plus the metal frame which held the cabinet card or other image to be copied.

Postage stamp-sized photographs (a.k.a. 'gem' images) gained popularity toward the end of the 1800s and into the early 1900s. Several other manufacturers whose cameras produced these smaller images were Lancaster and W. Butcher & Sons of London, H.A. Hyatt of St. Louis, and Simon Wing and John Roberts of  Massachusetts.

The Holborn Stamp Camera appears in the November 14, 1901 issue of Britain's The Amateur Photographer magazine. The camera is described in a delightful run-on sentence:

"Messrs. George Houghton and Sons ... are issuing a camera whereby on a quarter-plate nine copies of a c. de v., or cabinet portrait, of postage stamp size, may be made, which diminutive prints, the firm point out, are specially suitable for Christmas cards in conjunction with a series of diminutive embossed and bevelled edge mounts with seasonable greetings which are being specially issued for the purpose."

The advertisement at left is from the December 12, 1901, issue of The Amateur Photographer. Note that the ad claims that, "...direct Photographs can be taken if desired." If this was true, then the lenses would have to be able to resolve (make sharp) an image anywhere from 6 inches to infinity. 

Click here to see a tintype plate containing identical gem images made with a 16-lens camera