Very often, old photographies are evidences of the past but it may also occur that the cases which are protecting them are also piece of History.
This Civil War-era thermoplastic case has been manufactured in the period 1862-1863, by the famous daguerreian case manufacturer Littlefield, Parsons & Co , in Northampton, Massachusetts.

It depicts the Union ironclad ship USS Monitor, which was designed by the Captain John Ericsson  and delivered to the Union Government on February 25, 1862.

The USS Monitor took an active part in the famous battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862. This one was the first "modern" naval battle of human history. During this battle, the fight of the USS Monitor against the confederate CSS Virginia (which was a frigate sheathed in iron) remains famous. Both vessels battled each other for control of the passageway through to Washington.

The "Monitor" foundered in a bad storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on December 31st,1862, and was lost forever, until being discovered in the 1973 at the bottom of the ocean, badly damaged. 

The USS Monitor's revolving iron tower has already been raised, along with other parts of the ship, and have been placed into the Mariners' Museum in Newport, Virginia.  

This  ninth plate case made of brown thermoplastic depicts the USS Monitor living the pier, the stars and stripes fluttering bravely from a pole on her deck.  The revolving gun tower is visible in the center of the ship's deck, as well as several ammunition crates on the ship to the left of the tower, as well as the many individual alligator-like iron plates that covered the ship's deck. 

This case is outstanding. First due to its real historical value, but also because it is nearly never found by the eager collectors who search for it. It is even more scarce in the ninth plate size than in the sixth plate format.