>Keep in mind that vintage albumen prints were almost always wet mounted.
>They consequently stretched taught on the surface of the mounting board
>when they dried. That stretch, along with using a thin paper with little
>surface texture to begin with, is a major factor in producing an albumen
>print's characteristic surface quality.
The wet mounted papers was glazed in a lot of case with a (heated) cylinder
press. The relatively strong pressure smoothed the paper fibers also on
the surface.
There where sizing/covering methods also (the result was a bit similar to
the baryta layer) in the egg-albumen age.
Bálint Flesch
Hungary