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Hello
I’ve a question on the possible date of Card number 437739. Also, I suspect I am not the only one wondering about the whereabouts of the photo archive for these types of cards. Has anyone ever located the negatives archives?
I don’t know if anyone has tried to find the archives. Given that the company existed relatively recently (1950s), there could be a chance of finding them but on the whole it is very unusual for any records of postcard companies to survive.
Card number 437739 would have been produced in 1929 at the factory of C. G. Röder in Leipzig. See Mike Smith’s “The Rumsey & Co. Picture Postcard Handbook” (2024), available from Mike Smith Books.
Hello,
I am hoping that someone in your club might be able to help me.
My great uncle, W. Worth Davis was a jeweler/watch maker and a very serious collector of Canadian and British Commonwealth stamps. He also took pictures of Main Street Tillsonburg and of some private homes and had them made into “photocards” (sorry, I’m not sure if I am using the correct term here).
Uncle Worth’s daughter, Martha (Davis) Walcot ultimately took over his stamp collection and she helped get me started collecting Canadian stamps. Martha spent years trying to track down some of her father’s postcards without any luck. I have taken up the search, but have not found any either. I do not know if Uncle Worth’s name is on the front or back of his postcards (or perhaps the name of his jewelry store [E.F. Davis Jewelers], but I do know that there were at least a dozen or so different postcards.
Might any of your members have any of these cards or know who might? I would really like to try to find some as they are part of our family history. I realize this is probably a wild goose chase, but any help that you might be able to offer me would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you very much,John Macdonald
Hi John, I will try to remember to include a note about this in the next edition of Card Talk. We have quite a few members from the London, Ont., area. – Andrew Cunningham, Editor, Card Talk
Is there a complete list of cards from Albertype for Landahls in Dawson City? I live in the Yukon, a avid early Yukon collector. I have 57. Thanks, Dave
Yes, Ken Elder’s “A History and Directory of Yukon Postcards 1897-1942” is an extremely thorough guide to Yukon postcards, including Landahl’s (57 is an impressive number – you should join the TPC!) The book is available from Mike Smith Books.
Hi Isobel. Quite sure that ‘proof’, probably on the back of your card? means it was a sample sent by the publisher to the client as a last check before it was printed for the client. Sometimes you see ones that have details of what title is wanted and the order quantity. Certainly a postcard that falls under the topic of ‘deltiology’.
Hi Sian, Silk postcards are usually worth at least a couple of dollars apiece. But for a minority of them, the values can go much higher. It depends on what is depicted on them, the quality of the artwork, how uncommon the design is (some are very common and therefore not too valuable) and their condition. Usually the more connected they are to specific military themes, the more valuable they are, but that’s just a generalization that doesn’t hold true all of the time. Some of the non-military themes can be quite desirable too. – Andrew Cunningham, TPC.
The Canadian Post Card Co. was founded in early 1910 by Donald Alexander Lynn of Toronto. Donald A. Lynn was the manager of the Underwood & Underwood office in Toronto from 1897 to 1910. The Toronto office of U&U was a major one and every one of the millions of U&U stereo views have the name Toronto on them. Lynn knew that the U&U company was founded by the two Underwood Brothers out of their home in Ottawa, Kansas. The two brothers started selling stereo views door to door. U&U became the largest photographic company in the world.
Ottawa, Kansas was also the home of well known photographer W. H. “Dad” Martin, who was the best creator, ever, of exaggerated images for RPPC cards. Martin was a good friend of the two Underwood brothers and around 1900 took photos for U&U. Lynn of course knew about the exaggerated postcards published by Martin. Martin postcards had been widely distributed by U&U employees. Lynn left the U&U company in early 1910 and created the CPPC for the sole purpose of distributing the Martin exaggeration RPPC’s in Canada. Lynn, of course, knew about the Martin postcards. Ottawa, Kansas was also a name on everyone of the millions of U&U stereo views.
From 1910 to 1912 the CPPC company distributed forty-four of the Martin exaggeration postcards in Canada. Martin made around sixty exaggerated images for his postcards. The earliest CPPC postcards featuring Martin images are postmarked April/May 1910. There are many CPPC postcards postmarked in 1910. The CPPC postcards distributed in Canada were made in Ottawa, Kansas at the Martin Post Card Co. and had the “Martin” type handwriting on them, the CPPC name on them but, very interestingly, did not have anything on them about W. H. “Dad” Martin or his Martin Post Card Company founded in September of 1908.
When Martin stopped making postcards in 1912, the CPPC, of course, could not distribute any more of them in Canada. The CPPC then started making some of their own exaggerations about fish. They made fifteen such exaggerations in 1913. In 1923 the CPPC started making ten new exaggerated fish RPPC’s every two years. They did this for many years. In the later years of the CPPC they reproduced and distributed RPPC’s showing the Martin images again and also all of the exaggerated fish images they had created. The CPPC could never make any exaggeration photographic images which were as good as the ones made by W.H. “Dad” Martin in Ottawa, Kansas. (Additional information about the CPPC will be posted here soon.)
I will be glad to correspond about the history of CPPC and the Martin Post Card Co., etc. Contact Morgan Williams, P. O. Box 2607, Washington, D.C. 20013 or morganw9185@gmail.com. Co-author of the book, “Larger Than Life, The American Tall-Tale Postcard, 1905-1915,1980. Major contributor to the “Illustrated Checklist of Real Photo Post Cards by William H. “Dad” Martin, Ottawa Kansas 1908 to 1912,” 2005. by Dennis McBurney, sponsored by the Wichita Postcard Club, Wichita, Kansas.
I have 2 team hockey cards from 1913 and 1914 and they both have the same star with a W as noted on mystery card. NHL looks like it could have been added later for some unknown reason (to confuse?). As noted the NHL didn’t come into existance until 1917 and of course Wiarton didn’t have a team!! Some of the band members look similar to some of the hockey players on my cards.
A few of us are researching the real photo postcards of The Winnipeg Photo Company of Napinka. These cards are usually imprinted on either the front inscription or the reverse. We estimate that there may as many as 6000 different images of which we have approximately 600 in our listing. These images depict mostly southwestern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan. The range extends from Winnipeg to Regina. Any information, images, or examples we can add to our listing would be appreciated. The group has a Facebook Group “The Winnipeg Photo Company – Napinka Postcards”. Your participation is welcome.
If the vertical dividing line on the back between the message portion and address side is a full length line with a ball or medallion as we say, on the end, and if that medallion says PECO Toronto, it’s post their Ottawa tenure, so 1947 or after. If the dividing line is not the medallion type and is shorter with a small curlicue or drop-shaped end to this line, it’s an earlier printing, from about 1921 to 1930. These dates are gathered from a study by some TPC members examining their collection for the postal cancellations on PECO postcards. As such, these dates are approximate.
My mother has a very early picture of my father sitting in a plane that looks like the first 1934 Winnipeg model. He was born in 1932 and looks to be around 3 years old and is wearing an aviator’s cap. It is one of my most favourite pictures as I think it captures the innocence of his childhood that would later become very tragic and difficult. I was always very curious regarding its origin. I’ll have to relook at the photo and pay attention to the date on the plane.
Nice to hear of more and more of these! I’m not sure my grandparents would have sprung for this for my dad, although he was born in 1936 so likely just a little too late to have had the opportunity of trying to convince them
Thanks – they are wonderful images and appear to have been largely unique to western Canada although the general idea of using a prop (including live animals like ponies and goats) as a mobile photo studio was a venerable one by this era.
Yes, it is a little hard to tell but it looks like there might have been a series of 6 or 8 cards with western (RNWMP and indigenous) themes, of which #24 was one. They are actually among the harder ones to find and there are some gaps in the listing at that point (made more difficult by the fact that there is a second set of cards with the same numbering by C.S. Co., which muddies the picture somewhat).
Hi, no idea. Sir James Dunn was one of Canada’s most famous industrialists, and one of its wealthiest men, but he came from fairly humble origins in Bathurst. While he left the town at an early age to find his fortune, his mother remained there until her death in 1918. The biography written about him by his friend and fellow New Brunswicker Lord Beaverbrook, entitled “Courage”, begins with some recollections of Sir James’ family and boyhood in Bathurst.
I was wondering if anyone could let me know when explanatory captions began to be added to the message side of postcards. Thanks for any information you can provide.
Interesting question! I thought the answer would be easy – in the later years, after printing presses became so mechanized and postcard production relatively, less costly. However looking at my collection I found a description of the view on the back that was used in 1915. Maybe there’s a connection to offset printing that began around 1912. Perhaps postcards as an advertising media was also a catalyst. In any case, I think that the answer is to start to note earliest known dates from looking at postcards wherever you can. Send us an update if you find one that’s earlier than 1915!
Sir
In cleaning. Out our house for a move we came over a picture catalogue of very old post cards Many seem to b a hundred years old. I was wondering where I could go to have someone look at them as I know nothing about post cards I would like to know if they are of any value before I discard them
Thanks for your help
Ian Murray
As to valuations, look at our FAQ page for our insights. Also you can look at actual sold prices using the advanced search option in EBay by checking the ‘sold’ box. The condition of the card affects the price as does the scarcity. Some like the time stamp of the cancellation, others prefer a pristine item. On the other hand, postal history buffs often look for unusual postmarks and stamps on old postcards. In the world of deltiology, the ‘real photo’ postcard of a known subject is the most prized. Modern ‘chromes’ are inexpensive today but 50 years from now may be highly collectible because fewer seem to be kept. And of course, as with all vintage items, the value to a collector is what they feel it’s worth as an addition to their collection.
That’s fun! Ah yes, the misprint or print error. They do exist; things like a wrong trim, colour register errors and incorrect spelling or titles that don’t match the view. eBay has almost 100 offerings of this type at the moment. By the way, we call those waterfall foldout views a postcard ‘folder’. Not to be confused with a booklet which is several postcards attached together, usually on the left side, and often perforated to facilitate being torn out to use.
My wife’s grandfather J-A Lemire is on one of the postcards. Her younger sister has the original portrait. I just found out about the postcard. I will start looking for his, either on line or in antique malls. I wish I had known about these postcards years ago. I would be very interested in obtaining the one postcard of J.A. Lemire, station master, Windsor Station, Montreal. If anyone has an extra of this card or could put me in contact with someone who does, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
We have a similar postcard picture to those you have posted in the Spirit of Childhood plane article. Ours is of my mother-in-law in 1933
in Vancouver and I am certain, based on the visible marks on the end of the wing, that it is the exact same plane seen marked 1934 in your article.
The plane was probably repainted the next year when the photographer took it around Vancouver seeking clients.
Thanks, Dan. That would make sense. I just picked up an “Edmonton 1931” recently as well. It seems to have been a way to pick up some cash in the worst years of the Great Depression. By the mid-30s, the little airplanes seem to have been gone.
Hi, Stuart from Scotland here. From about 1936 till early 1950’s 2 ice hockey teams played in Perth,Scotland. These were recruited by a local millionaire who was obsessed with ice hockey and brought over players from North America,mainly Canadians. I have a postcard of one of the teams ‘Perth Panthers’ 1938-39 with players names eg Bob Purdie, Les Japp 9 more. Looking for more information re: these players/teams. As well, cards slightly bigger than postcard size were issued by the local paper. Thanks for any insights.
I have 10 of them, the collection which is Japan, Java, India, China Sea, Bangkok, the Philipines, Maples, Riviera, Greece and Madeira, all in excellent condition which are all framed from Flora Nash DeMuth
Hello All, I have been looking at a postcard on e-bay and after it’s title in brackets it says 57.2. Can anyone tell me what these numbers mean? The title if I remember correctly is Gathering rice near Gore’s Landing Rice Lake (57.2).
I am seeking information about a postcard supplier under the name “R. Archambault who was active in Montreal about 1906. I have a card with this name overprinted on a Valentine & Sons card of Prince Edward Island. Do other collectors have cards with the Archambault overprint. For details see https://straitpost.wordpress.com/2021/04/01/the-real-mccoy-really/
A query. Does anyone have information on a Canadian postcard publisher which operated under the name “Small-wares (or Smallwares) Distributions Company” of Toronto? They seem to have been active in the 1940s and 1950s. I have encountered cards when looking at multi-location use of view images. The name does not appear on the cards but the wordmark S.D.C. bracketed above and below by “made in Canada” appears in the card’s “T” line. In appearance the cards have a similar format to the Miller Art cards from the 1930. I have found reference and seen cards from P.E.I,. Quebec, Ontario, and B.C. locations but I expect they supplied cards across the country
Your query popped up when I did a search for “Made in Canada S.D.C” as I have a postcard entitled “Greetings from Deep River, Canada, Ontario, Canada” with this same identification in the “T” line. The image on my postcard also appears on postcards with the titles “Greetings…” from two Nova Scotian locations and a location in Quebec, all of which I have found using reverse image lookup. Each of these postcards has the same identification on the reverse; my card is dated in the 1950s as well. Interesting!
Hi, the listing was sold as a small coil-bound volume a number of years ago and is not available online. If there are specific questions we could see if we could help.
Hello, I just had a thought. Am I the only one who collects postcards, but has never received one? It’s a silly thing to ask however during this time of Covid I seem to have a lot of think time.
We always try to find a home for vintage postcards among our membership or at postcard shows. Our mailing address can be found on the ‘Contact’ page of this website.
Hello – I started my collection of ww1 postcards depicting Sikh and Indian soldiers. Since I’m new to this my research is primarily on eBay. Can you direct me to other areas where I can find such postcards ? Happy to discuss via phone as well. Thanks Raveen
Other postcard internet sellers can be found at hippostcard.com and delcampe.net. Also a suggestion that as I believe that Indian soldiers were more aligned with Britain that the European versions of the above and EBay.co.uk might be better resources for you.
What an amazing, detailed, interesting part of Ontario’s history to learn about. Thank you so much, Ken Elder! I have a 1924 35″ x 10″ roll-out panoramic photo of Niagara Falls, printed by the Photogelatin Engraving Co. From your notes above, it would have been one of first products the company made, within its first 3 years of existence. What a neat thing to know. I found the photo rolled up in a box of old family photographs that my grandmother gave me. The photo belonged to my great-grandmother, who emigrated to Canada from England, in 1909. It’s so incredible that this photo still exists, nearly 100 years later! I’m having it framed this week. =)
Sorry to say, but not likely a collector’s item. Views of Niagara Falls must be one of the most plentiful Canadian views. This view would have been sold widely and in quantity.
I’ve found the same thing in my St. Andrews, NB collection of Valentine cards. Now I find I am checking all cards for sale for such differences in sky and text in what otherwise appears to be same photo.
I am an avid collector of Harrison Fisher postcards.
I have one card Published by Detroit Publishing with the following stamp on the bottom of the card. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Do you have any ideas please.
The wording on the oval stamp is:- ENTERED ACCORDING TO THE ACT OF THE PARLIAMENT OF CANADA IN THE YEAR 1907 LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY AT THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
The card itself is from the Detroit Series published in 1902 depicting artwork by Harrison Fisher.
Thank you for your time
Cleve Whitworth From Australia
Hello and thanks for your question. To the best of my knowledge, that is a copyright notation. The federal Department of Agriculture was responsible for the administration of the Copyright Act of 1875 and, as such, was the depositary for copyrighted works in Canada in that era. That notation is seen on a few early Canadian postcards. In my experience the cards in question tend to be artist-illustrated cards, as yours is. In this case, it sounds as though the notation refers to the Harrison Fisher illustration itself, rather than the postcard on which it appears. Why Life Publishing Co., which was a U.S. company, deposited the image in Canada for copyright, and why Detroit Photo Co. specifically noted that fact on this particular postcard, is hard to say. But perhaps these illustrations were so popular that the U.S. rights-holder was particularly punctilious about asserting its copyright in Canada and other countries.
This is very helpful. I found a series of Timmins post cards in my parents’ basement and have always wondered when they are from. This research goes a ling way in helping me answer some questions. Thanks.
Hi, if you can send scans of the front and back (or iPhone pictures or whatever), we can have a look. The email is edit-r@t-r-nt-p-stcardclub.c-m with the dashes replaced with “o”. Postcards with general titles like “Trout Fishing” are sometimes just generic photos that didn’t really come from the place that they were sold in. So the first thing would be to watch out for that (unless it’s clearly in Chipman).
Most of Rumsey & Co.’s postcards were printed by a firm in Leipzig, Germany, whose card numbering can be linked to a calendar year. Card no. 378803 would have been published in 1925.
I have recently been looking closely at cards from unidentified publishers and have noticed a numbered series with a recognizable style. My cards are all from Prince Edward Island and I would be interested in thoughts as to the extent of this series for other provinces and who the publisher might be. The full details are published on my Straitpost blog site at https://straitpost.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/where-ever-two-or-three-are-gathered/
Great question … just going on the authority of Mike Smith, these seem to be MacFarlane cards. I made a comment to that effect on the blog. Not a common style, I would agree.
A friend sent me a link to this site, so as someone who has lived in the area for the last 26 years and been into(and worked in) the Barrington river many times perhaps I can offer a little insight. First off I don’t think you’re post card photo was taken in this area. There has never been a railroad in the area. The iron road was put in, in the sixties by a mining company for exploration work, and got it’s name because they were drilling to define the extent of an iron ore body on a mountain just to the east of the barrington river. The map you posted actually has the road misnamed as the original iron road is the road marked in yellow you see branch off to the right farther back on your map. The left fork that goes in to the barrington was put in around 1970-71, by a company called Integrated Resources to access their placer claims on the barrinton river. The 2 gray lines along the road you thought indicated the trestle, are actually an airstrip built by integrated resources to service there placer mining operation(too overgrown to be serviceable except by helicopter now). The original iron road(right fork), has been too overgrown to be passably for quite sometime now, but the integrated resources road has been kept passable as there are still active placer claims being worked in the barrington. There was a camp set as well on the old airstrip this past summer, as a helicopter base for a mining company doing some exploratory drilling in the mountains to the west of the barrington. Hope that helps although I’m guessing it wasn’t what you wanted to hear.
Thanks. That’s interesting and most welcome. Sounds like the search for an explanation must continue! It certainly sounded as though activity in the area went back to the turn of the last century, but information available online is very sketchy.
I am trying to get a date range and a photographer for a northern Ontario postcard. The postcard is an RPPC from Creighton Mine, which was in the Sudbury area. It’s printed on semi-gloss sepia paper and probably dates from 1915-25. I’ve never seen a back like this. You can see the images here.
Anyone out there with expertise on northern Ontario photographers who used this type of postcard stock? Thanks.
Hello:
Would everyone please watch for a postcard of The Old Homestead Harwood Rice Lake. This tourist camp will be in our family next year for 100 years. There were only 2 views of the camp printed. Many tourist came here from Ohio, Michigan and New York. I can be reached at olddhomestead1@gmail.com. Thanks.
I am trying to date an unnumbered black and white “Valentine & Sons Pub. Co. Ltd.,Toronto” postcard. The front is titled “Bird’s eye view of St. Andrews, N.B.
While the web site article on Valentine & Sons is very detailed and helpful, it does not refer to any unnumbered cards.
Hi Brett, Sometimes the numbers don’t appear because the card was cut a bit off-line in the production process, so that the number was inadvertently sliced off. Other cards just don’t seem to have been numbered at all, for whatever reason. I’d have to see the card to tell you much more than that. It doesn’t seem to be in our database. If it says “Valentine & Sons Pub. Co. Ltd., Toronto”, it would likely be pre-1920. You’re welcome to send me a scan (both sides, preferably, but at least the picture side) to edit-r@t-r-nt-p-stcardclub.c-m, substituting “o” for each hyphen. Regards, Andrew
Hello! I have been trying to find out about the Published by “Ballantine Bros.” Toronto Canada, postcards. I have 15 cards published by them but can not find any information like around what year they are. I would take a guess at about 1910 but I am interested in finding out more history of them. Thank you if anyone has any information.
A Google search of ‘Ballantine Bros Toronto’ brought a Toronto Reference Library result showing some of these cards in their postcard collection They suggest 1910 as the date of the view. A similar view of the Bond Street Church by Valentine & Sons is also in their collection. I would suggest that as ‘white border’ postcards, that the Ballantine Bros. cards were later reprints of the Valentine views which we know to have been published in the postcard Golden Age. On EBay you can see a back view and that these cards were printed by a USA printer. Perhaps Ballantine Bros. was merely a merchant who contracted their printing.
I recently acquired 10 RPPC postcards of Hamilton, ON. They measure approximately 1 1/4″ x 5 1/2″. Three of them were mailed in 1910. The cards were published by Rumsey & CO., Toronto, ON. On the address side, it says (imprime) Book Post Card.
Question: What are these cards called?. I checked eBay and googled the size but came up empty handed
From metropostcard.com, a comprehensive web-site on things postcard, this description from their glossary section: Bookmark Cards (Book Post Cards) A bookmark card is a novelty postcard that was manufactured for use as a bookmark rather than mailing, even though it could be mailed. These types of cards were largely printed in England between 1903 and 1904, with some being printed in Canada about 1910. Their most common size is 5 1/4 by 1 3/4 inches. They are also referred to as panel cards.
Does anyone know if the Parks went to holiday at Gore’s Landing Rice Lake? Better yet, does anyone know what Mrs. Parks looked like? I have a post card with a picture of Mrs. Parks sitting at waters edge.
You probably have seen this already, but the postcard with the Squirrel Peanut Butter evidently was taken around Christmas time. I’m not sure if that helps, but there are a number of boxes of Christmas crackers on display with the caption “Brock’s X-Mas Crackers” with an upside down clown and a monkey it seems, and on some boxes it says “Brock’s Fireworks” with a woman holding a fan in Chinese garb and three figures in the background. I see also on the top shelf near the Old Dutch packages some smaller packages that seem to say Victoria Cross. There does appear to be the depiction of a military cross on the packaging. There also seem to be some fancy boxes of chocolates in the photo. I thought I also espied a postcard with two girls walking. It can be seen on the counter, but it’s likely the cover of a box of chocolates as there seems to be a ribbon wrapped around it.
When looking for particular postcards we search for the location from where the card came from. Card dealers have done an excellent job in organizing their cards in boxes at card shows and on line auctions. This has been great for me as a collector, however I am finding it more difficult to locate cards I don’t have. I have now begun to collect cards from the area which I collect by the names of those who either sent the card or have received the card. Case in point I typed in the name of my grand-father on E-bay and one dealer had the smarts to post my grand-fathers name along with the view of the front of the card. The reverse was also shown. Needless to say I got the card. This could be another avenue for dealers to make more sales. On the other hand it might be too just much work.
That is a very good point. There was (and perhaps still is) one dealer from the UK who sells relatively low-value cards primarily as genealogical items. It’s not common to include names of senders or recipients, though. Something for dealers to think about!
My name is Stephen MacDonald. My father was born in Toronto in 1920. My single grandmother Isabel MacDonald lived in the Snowdon district of Montreal and in the 1950s had a roomer who’s name was TJ Pugh. He seemed to me, a ten year old, to be much older than her. She was born in Montreal in 1895 as Isabel Stead. ‘Uncle’ Tom was a toy wholesaler for Reliable Toys. His office was on St James(Jacques) St. When I found this website I wondered if this TJ was the Thomas James mentioned in the PughCompany bio on your website. Any additional information on TJ Pugh would be helpful. Steve MacDonald, Oakville
I can’t find any secondary sources that give information about the Canadian Post Card Co. Primary sources suggest the company was active from at least 1911 through 1969.
From 1911-1917, the Canadian Post Card Co (D A Lynn) is listed at 568 Dundas. In 1918 it is listed at 1570 Dundas W. In 1920 D A Lynn is listed as Donald A Lynn and the rest of the listing remains unchanged (except for the phone number) through 1946.
In 1947 and 1948 the listing is “Canadian Post Card Co Ltd, Donald A Lynn pres, Elsie P Campbell sec-treas, post cards,” still at 1570 Dundas W.
Both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star report the death of Donald Alexander Lynn on March 14, 1948, noting that he was born in Barrie and founded the Canadian Post Card Co. “37 years ago.”
In 1949, the directory listing is “Canadian Post Card Co Ltd, John E Bramham Pres, David Collver vice-pres, Elsie P Campbell sec-treas,” same address.
In 1950, the listing is “Canadian Post Card Co Ltd, David Collver pres, Beatrice Vaughan sec-treas,” still the same address. The final listing available online is 1969 and is the same except Beatrice Vaughan has become Beatrice Collver in the interim.
The Toronto Star (but not the Globe) reports the death of David Collver on October 4, 1976.
Presume you have the card entitled ‘First House Built in Assiniboia, Canada’ in the list already? I have an unposted example here.
Only stumbled on this blog yesterday – read the whole thing in one sitting – excellent! Happy New Year from Canterbury in the UK.
Many thanks for your kind comments. The “First House” is indeed on our current list. No new postcards from this series have turned up in the past few years, suggesting that the 35 we know of might well constitute the entire set. (Andrew Cunningham)
My family own a tourist camp at Rice Lake Ontario and the year 2021 will mark it’s 100th anniversary. As a part of our celebrations I have been collecting postcards of Rice Lake and surrounding villages.(Harwood, Gore’s Landing, Bewdley, Keene, Hiawatha, Hastings and Roseneath) There were only 2 views of our camp ever produced that we know of. Our business was called The Old Homestead up until 2000 when my husband and I purchased it from my parents estate. It was at this time we attempted to incorporate, but soon learned the name had been incorporated by another business. As a result we incorporated under the name of “The Old Burrison Homestead Ltd.” after my father. Over the years there were only 2 views of the camp made into postcards that we know of. If you have any cards of the lake and area especially The Old Homestead Rice Lake, please contact me. Thanks for checking this out. Isobel.
actually there is 25 postcards to each set as each set has an introduction to it with a check list on the back. Ive found looking for info that the cards were made available just before Christmas 1941 employees could purchase 1 or a whole set or both sets. I have all 50.
I can’t claim an exhaustive list but I can give you what I have if you want it. I currently have 16 numbered real photo cards although a couple seem to be from a different series. I have a notion that the Royal York used them at different times but all were likely promo cards that you get in any typical upper end hotel. Let me know if I can help.
Many of us deltiologists regard the postcards in our collection as art. In addition to hand-drawn like the memograms, there are ones made of silk, birchbark, celluloid, ones that have moving parts, ones that were taken by photographic artists, and so on. Whether another might see them as ‘art’ is of course, ‘in the eye of the beholder’ as they say.
‘Artist Signed’ postcards are a topic in most postcard dealer boxes. Some early artists; Clapsaddle for example are highly valued. The excellent postcard website ‘metropostcard.com’ has a long list of collectible artist postcards. As postcards, I would say that the memograms are probably valued around $10.00 individually. As a complete set, they would be worth more. And then there’s the cost to frame them.
I have a 16 Photographic Views of Petawawa War Camp. They are of world war 1 time . The first picture is of Premier Borden,Lt-Gen.Sir Sam Hughes and H.R.H. Duke of Connaught. Published by The College Bookstore,Kingston on. There are 2/ 1 cent stamps affixed to envelope which is in poor condition,pictures are excellent shape.I was wondering if worth anything? I also have a post card that says Declaring The Poll, Pockington Lan 9.7.190?. There is no personal writing on card. The card says Slights, Photo, Pocklington,and the postage to says half-penny for inland,one penny foreign. Again worth if any?
We have an overview of valuation on our FAQs page here, Michael. Suggest that you give it a look. WWI postcards are a topic in a postcard dealers box and I suspect yours would be of interest to a collector of that topic. Because its an intact ‘booklet’ from your description, you might expect a multiple of the single card value of a Petawawa Camp postcard. The other postcard that you have seems to be of a British topic and in Canada, less interesting therefore.
I just recently came across a postcard of Heather Lodge in Muskoka with me in the picture and description. It was produced by the Canadian post card Company. 1954. Are there any archives of this company?
I have a postcard depicting 2 children in a plane labelled The Spirit of Childhood with lettering showing Calgary 1931. The plane is on the sidewalk in front of the children’s house; the children are my sister, then 7, and my brother,6. I recall my mother telling us of a man going around the neighbourhood looking for wil.lling clientele.
Thanks! It’s amazing how many people have these wonderful postcards tucked away at home. The thing I’ve yet to see is one of them that was actually sent through the mail!
I am looking for information on O.E. Co., Canada (Ontario Engraving Company). I have seen the listings you have done for other postcard publishers and wondered if there is info on this company and what they printed.
Thank you.
Pat
As found in a Google search that turned up the “Industrial Canada” Journal. Aug. 1908, seems they were a Hamilton, Ontario printer. Specialists in Illustrating, BurLDiNGS, Machinery, Stovks, by Half-Tone, Wood and Zinc. Permit us to quote you.
ONTARIO ENGRAVING COMPANY, Hamilton, Canada.
Our colleagues at the Golden Horseshoe Postcard Club may have some more information.
Good afternoon Pat;
I have been doing quite a bit of research on the Ontario Engraving Co. of Hamilton and have a lot of images and some information…. but not a lot of detail is available in the Hamilton Archives. The company went by more than one name and used various logos. I have numerous cards that they did of Hamilton and a couple from Port Dalhousie in the Niagara area. Their main business was illustrated engraving for businesses in the Hamilton area as well as several promotional books for the City of Hamilton. Their owner, Mr. McCullogh was the founder of the Canadian Club and far more information is known about that. Feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss the company some more.
Regards
Jon Soyka,President, Golden Horseshoe Post Card Club
Hamilton 905-388-5840 jon@soyka.ca
I have a Saint John NB card from the series numbered (24), again to the left of the caption, “Suspension Bridge, St. John, N.B.” It is postmarked 2 Feb 1906. In my opinion, the number on the cards can only be a card number within a series of, at least, fifty cards.
Yes, I agree. It seems to be a rather scarce series. I have nos. 6, 30 and 50 — keep looking for more but they don’t show up often. (Andrew Cunningham)
I wonder if the omission of punctuation has anything to do with the other popular from of communication from the period. Telegraph messages were usually charged for by the word and in some cases charge was made for punctuation as evidenced hence the use of “stop” for a period. Short communication such as used on postcards may have adopted a terse style related, not to cost, but to space available.
Yes that’s possible – an interesting idea. I suppose one would have to compare actual full-length letters from the period to see whether this tendency is in evidence there as well.
Further to the above I should have noted that the link to the BC map page takes one only to the general area. To look at the specific area under discussion search for “Mount Barrington” and then look south east to find a broad flood plain. You can then toggle back and forth between the topo map and the aerial photo of the area. Another topo map of the same area can be found at http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/dmf-viewer/?siteid=5628311639164388216 but IU was not able to find a way to zoom in on that version.
That’s odd. It may leave a cookie or something once you’ve looked at it once because, for me, it takes me to the area, with the locations being easily recognizable if you have the map I included in the article as reference.
Your observations as regards the method of trestle building are spot on. What is interesting is there were dedicated ore cars used to transport the spoil/soil to fill up the trestle and provide a firm base for the final road bed. On PEI this method was frequently used for small gullies and streams but in those cases the earth was loaded on to flatcars and the engine pulled a wooden plow along the length of the train shoving the earth off the cars on both sides. While you have the technology right I have a great deal of difficulty with the locational analysis. Mount Barrington and the Barrington River are north of the Stikine River near Telegraph Creek. How an engine (however small) and railcars were transported to the site is beyond imagining although there was service of small steamboats on the first 200 miles or so of the Stikine. Telegraph Creek was not even connected to another community by road until well into the 20th century. An earlier delivery of railway equipment would have been a noteworthy accomplishment. Examining the aerial photos of the area there appears to be no other evidence of any sort of rail line or improved corridor with which the supposed embankment would connect. The BC topographical map found at http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/dmf-viewer/?siteid=5628311639164388216 shows that the visible slash on the surface is located on level ground within the valley bottom or flood plain and no trestle or embankment would be necessary even if there was a rail line. A BC mines exploration report for the Mount Barrington area dated 1968 fails to mention any prior exploitation of mineral resources and notes only an abandoned trail accessible only by 4 wheel drive vehicles. If a track bed had existed in the area it is probable it would have been noted. Unfortunately your link to a “topographic map” brings up an aerial photo which does not contain the “Iron Road” notation you mention. Perhaps it is a wrong link? However the location could be a red herring and I think the key may be in the location name. While “Barrington” could possibly be interpreted from the photo I think there could be other locations beginning with “Ba??”. I don’t think there are enough letters to spell Barrington. Finally it seems beyond belief that there would be a photograph from back of beyond BC, which would be turned into a postcard sent from Chatham Ontario in 1911. While it was certainly common for postcards to be mailed some distance from the location pictured, the distance from, and remoteness of the suggested location make it extremely unlikely. I think a different name but one a little nearer Chatham would be more likely. Given that this was an period of railway expansion both in Ontario and in the development of transcontinental routes there should be a number of possibilities. Finally, the name may be a barrier to identification as it might have been a temporary one long lost or abandoned as a place name. Once the embankment was finished the site might no longer have warranted a name at all and the location may simply have had the moniker ” Mile 37 on the Upper Rubber Boot Branch Line.” However this is a fascinating exercise. The answer is out there somewhere.
The “Iron Road” label took me a little while to find again, but it’s at the Mapcarta link (in the article) if you switch the view to “Map” (the little blue-and-white flag icon in the upper left corner. The name “Iron Road” and the fact that the road is so straight are both at least somewhat suggestive of this having once been a bed for a railway. The map also shows what looks like a symbol for an embankment on either side of the Iron Road in exactly the spot in question, as well as showing a contour line that would suggest at least a mild elevation at the west end of the (hypothesized) embankment. If it is an embankment, it looks consistent with the size one might expect, given the image on the card.
Exactly why a trestle would be required at that exact spot was something that also seemed to me to be a weak spot in my otherwise airtight case (well, not quite airtight!). But that looks to me like an embankment symbol on the topo map, which is a lot more evidence than I expected to find a century later.
Anyway, thanks for the analysis. It could be somewhere else, for sure. Anything is possible – I’ve not been to Barrington River to check and it doesn’t seem from looking for photos on line that very many people have! It looks like the sort of spot that it would be wonderful to find oneself at but probably not so wonderful a place to have to try to get to.
Although postcards did tend to be posted in proximity to the scene depicted, there is no reason in principle that any card couldn’t have been mailed from anywhere – and one does sometimes see such mailings. All it would have taken in this case is for some guy working on this mine site to send a pile of them to his mom in Chatham and for her to grab one of them a couple years later when she was hunting around for a postcard to send a note to her friend in Pontiac. So that aspect of it I’m not so concerned about.
Thanks for your contribution to the mystery. We’ll see what the verdict of history turns out to be…
Has anyone ever tried to track down what became of the original negatives and photographs for the Valentine and Sons images of Canada? I would assume that the ones showing eastern Canada would have ended up in Percy Black’s possession? Has anyone ever tried to research what happened to Percy Black’s collection after his company, Valentine Black, closed?
Hi Marc, Not that I’ve heard of but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone has tried this (or to do the same thing with the Edy family – I forget Edy’s first name – in Winnipeg). We’ll see if there are any responses. (Andrew Cunningham)
Hello everyone , My first thoughts when I saw the airplane is it was a photo of Amelia Earhart . I think the photo was taken of the two women , not the airplane . Emilia Earhart was in Callander Ont in April 1937 to see the Dionne quints . She supposedly drove from Toronto ,is this her hitching a ride back to T.O or the US . Could make sense why this picture was taken .Only my thoughts, I love a GOOD mystery .
Well now, that wouldn’t have done for the postcard since Gt. Barrington is on the “Housatonic” River (as I of course knew long before Googling it 8 seconds ago — as a former Bay Stater myself … ).
Was wanting to know if a post card that my father in- law had of Prime Minster Winston Churchill is a collectors item? It is in excellent shape. How would I find out? There is no hand writing on the back. On the back it says Published by permission of the Prime Minster. by the Photochrom Co. Ltd. London & Tunbridge Wells.
Of course to a postcard collector just about any postcard has value! Even if it’s ‘new’, the stamps often appeal to beginning philatelists. We hear that seniors’ residences are using the views for cognitive therapy too. Often a way to see how others value a certain types of postcard is to look on Ebay. When I searched for ‘Photochrom Co. Ltd. London & Tunbridge Wells’, there are quite a few for sale from around $3.00 to under $10.00. As for Sir Winston, a postcard with his likeness also seems to sell in that range. Perhaps giving this postcard to some sort of history related organization would be a place for it? or a history teacher at a school.
there are in fact U.S. examples as well. WECV is a christian radio station in Tennessee and the spirit one website points to the Yukon U.S. someone else posted another photo claiming it was Victoria BC??? just like children posing on ponies is ubiquitous so it seems was posing in tiny airplanes.
Hello I have 7 postcards from 1910 all have the copyright Canada by Canadian postcard Co Toronto. They have been in my family for many years and were given to my parents after a family friend passed away. The pictures on the front of the cards are all scenes of either giant rabbits/hares either being chased by men in cars or have been caught and being carried on a pole. A giant corn on the cob being on a wagon being pulled by 2 horses. giant potatoes also on a cart being pulled by horses and a man sitting on top of one. Huge watermelon being sawn into slices by 2 men. A house being lifted by large pumpkin and lastly 2 men in a boat fishing huge fish. I’m not able currently to take photos but was looking for some information on these on the back of some are a stamp on the reverse which says the office of divisional car foreman May 19th 1910 NORTH BAY Ont any help with any information would be great
Hi Benjamin,
Those are known as “exaggeration” postcards and were fairly popular around 1910. Exaggeration cards are recognized as a collecting area, especially by U.S. collectors (a little more than in Canada because they were all, or almost all, made in the U.S.).
Another visitor to our site was asking us about them a few years ago — he seemed to know about them and noted that the Canadian Postcard Co. series were “taken from images by William H. Martin from Ottawa, Kansas, USA. I believe these cards were first released in 1910 and continued for some time.” So in reality they were imported from the U.S. and imprinted by the Canadian Postcard Co. with Canadian town names or other information and sold here.
There are many varieties and they aren’t usually too expensive if you want to collect some more!
Congratulations. This is a very interesting and informative website. I am doing some research for the penitentiary museum here in Kingston, Ontario and wondered if anyone in your club might happen to have a postcard of ‘G Company’ of the 21st Battalion Overseas Regiment taken in Kingston on Nov. 21, 1914? Here is a low resolution scan of one as found on the 21st CEF website http://21stbattalion.ca/photosdg/g_company_1914.jpg
We need to locate a higher res version in an attempt to identify one of our fallen penitentiary officers who was in that regiment in WW 1. Apparently the original that was scanned for the website has been lost. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Hi Dave
My grandfather was in the 21st, I remember trips to Kingston to visit Alf Tugwood, a comrade of his. That would have been mid 70s and I think Alf was involved with the 21st association. Anyhow, I have some copies of the 21st magazine that I will dig out to see if anything for your quest. I looked for my grandfather in your scan but couldn’t see him but hard to tell. He was Thomas Scott. On a related note, my uncle was Peter Hennessy who wrote a history of Kingston pen. The big house.
Howdy, from May (Brown County), Texas, USA – I went to an Estate Auction this week (7/17/18)- a widow’s estate who lived in Brownwood, Texas – She had been a Baptist Missionary and died at 104 years of age. I bought a box of “junk”, mainly for a pretty antique bowl I wanted. However, it came with a bunch of old postcards. Some were written on and some have never been used. I would like to mail these to your Club with the hopes that someone there will be able to organize and keep these old post cards – some are really old – some may be good for your auctions/fundraiser. I have done some searching online and I don’t know of any Post Card Collectors here in Texas – there might be some, but they don’t pop up, so I’m sending these your way – some may be valuable — I don’t know, but I’d rather see someone benefit or enjoy these cards rather than just throw them away. Thank you for helping to keep the memory of old times, historical buildings and old places alive thru these post cards. With Kindest Regards, Valerie Kelton, May, TX
Thanks for the offer, Valerie, but if the subject matter of the postcards is American they are really better to stay in the USA. Here is a list of postcard clubs in the USA and other. I suggest that you connect with some of these which are representative of the subject matter. If the cards are Canadian, by all means we will find them a home. Our mailing address in on our ‘contact’ page.
Hello, I am looking for postcards of Quebec … of the following cities Beauharnois, Melocheville, St-Timothée, Valleyfield and all the maps of the photographer Élie Gendron..I pay $ 100 for Melocheville cards with black band signed Élie Gendron or E.G and $ 35 and up for Beauharnois cards by Élie Gendron or E.G..thanks you!
A really interesting observation. I went through just a couple categories and found the same thing, but many of my duplicates are “sky only” and “sky with clouds”. The clouds are clearly “painted” in – in one card the clouds look like they’ve been painted by Gaugin. Valentine has a ton of variations (and I just collect Toronto!) – I’ve counted 45 of them just on the face of cards – black and white, sepia etc. I’ve never counted the different backs of the cards, nor, until now, the clouds.
I think “geeky” and “deltiologist” are a bit redundant, don’t you?
It’s not just Valentine & Sons that have this variety of skyline change, but many other publishers do the same. I often thought it was perhaps due to the cost of the stencils. They were expensive to cut, as was the material used to make them and they would have different dye cutters producing the stencils, thus the difference. It would be more cost effective to have a variety of skylines to fit many types/style of cards.
I have 23 of the 24 original series set no. 2 “Representative Canadian Railway Type Post Cards. I am missing J.McGarvey freight conductor, toronto in the original packaging.
You are probably referring to “The Canadian Pacific Railway Employee Sketches” by artist Kathleen Shackleton. In a recent Club auction we sold several at about $10. per postcard. To a railway enthusiast, a complete set might be worth a premium for the complete set.
Hello. I recently discovered an album full of old postcards. The problem is the album is one of those horrible ‘magnetic page’ albums so popular in the 1970s. Is there a safe way to remove the cards from the album as they are stuck very firmly? Thanks in Advance
What Carl said. In my PEI collection, there are often 3+ different skies for the same scene – I had presumed this artistic license was national in nature.
The shadow of the X shaped crossing sign in the centre foreground is partial in the upper image and more complete in the lower image, suggesting a subtly different cropping of the image as well.
I have a question about Rumsey cards I hope someone can answer. The back of their cards in your history is the one I am familiar with. Their business name is printed on the left side of the card and their reference number is found in the bottom right-hand corner of the card back.
I have found identical views in both colours as these views but without their name anywhere on the card and a completely different reference number in the stamp box.
Were these Rumsey cards? Were they purchased by someone else who printed them in this new way?
The post mentions “as well as several series of patriotic postcards”. Can you help with images or any information on any patriotic card by Rumsey? I note that none are listed in Mike Smith’s book.
I just checked my collection and it turns out that I also have no (6) which is “Highland View Hospital, Amherst, N.S.”, so it appears that there was a series of at least 50 cards in this style. (Andrew)
Perhaps not so rare after all. I have a series of PEI cards published by P.D. Ayer of Moncton, all of which have the Private Mailing Card label. I will send a scan directly to you as it is not clear how images can be appended to REPLYS.
I just spotted another Black Printing card with the coloured back – “Cape Tormentine Breakwater” from a private collection on-line http://www.peipostcards.ca/58.html
This time there is no number on the front.
I am interested in the “(50)” to the left of the title on the card. If this is a card number it suggests that Black Printing had an extensive series of cards at this early date. On the other hand the number may have some other meaning such as the size of the press run. Any collectors of Black Printing who could shed some light on the matter?
I would like to solicit the assistance of any members with Rumsey or P.E.I. collections. I am compiling a catalogue of early (pre WWI)Rumsey cards of P.E.I. and have identified 25-30 cards. Gaps in the known series suggest there may upwards of 20 additional cards. The Rumsey cards have number in the stamp box and there appear to be there are two main series of P.E.I. cards in the form 253?? and 480?? My current problem is that I have four cards where the number is unreadable owing to a stamp on the card. If anyone has unstamped copies of any of the following Rumsey cards I would appreciate learning what the number may be:
Charlottetown Harbour P.E. Island
Market Square, Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Queen Street, Charlottetown, P.E.I. [monotone]
Birds Eye View from the Post Office, Summerside, P.E.I.
With regard to the latter card there are actually two cards with the identical title – the one I am seeking information about is not card #48028. My guess is it is probably either 48027 of 48029.
I have found a card by the International Stationery Co. of Picton that’s in colour – looks like water colour but it’s original to the card. This is the first ISC card I’ve ever seen that’s colour, at least for Toronto. Do any of you have ISCs in colour?
Byron Harmon Photographer and Postcard Publisher published Postcards overprinted on Enida Olives cards as well as having Enida Olive publish cards with his name only but using clearly the Enida Olive format. I have seen at least 52 cards in my Byron Harmon Collection.
I am working on a book to illustrate all the Byron Harmon Cards. I have about 325 pages so far. I have just scanned another 800 cards not in my collection.
I have also found one in my mother in laws photos and thought I would research where it came from. It is a 1934 Vancouver Spirit of Childhood postcard and the background is a bit different than the others that I have seen posted so it does seem to back up the idea that the prop was moved around from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Thanks for starting this post, it made it easy for me to find out a bit about the stories and photos that I am putting into a book I am making of her memories.
Mr. Rumsey was the manager of W. F. Mcgregor of leather postcard fame in Toronto according to Might’s 1908 Toronto Directory. When Mcgregor went out of business in 1908 along with the failure of MacFarlane, Herr Rumsey appears on the scene as a publisher. It is notable that Bill Rumsey lived at 1528 Queen W in Toronto, the address of his postcard company.
MacFarlane was first out of the block in early 1908 [see his ad in the Bookseller & Stationer], the others followed later in 1908 and continued into 1909.
MacFarlane may seem to be late to the game because of fewer samples, but keep in mind that his company went under in late 1908, hence seemingly fewer cards from him.
I twigged to your article while researching something else, and this hit came up.
I look forward to getting the issue – hopefully soon. CardTalk has come a long way in 30 years since I first joined the Club and started getting it. Hopefully,many more years ahead for the Club and Newsletter.
I can tell you,as I live in the province,that Saskatchewan no longer wants to be known strictly as a “Wheat Province”. Oil production began in the late 1940s and we are on our way at taking the industry away from Alberta! Mining for Potash,which began in the early 1960s is also a huge business operation here. Just over half the population of Saskatchewan live in Saskatoon and Regina (and Moose Jaw -which is close-by to Regina)now so there’s probably many who don’t even know what living on a farm or even a small town is like. Collect those postcards of combine farming from the 1970s & 1980s because someday THEY will be the antique collectibles !
Great article. Thank you. Of particular interest to me was figure 4.- as this house was owned by by my uncle prior to its purchase by the Unitarian Church.
I am wondering if anyone is doing work on Pugh Manufacturing? The company seems to have been very busy. For Prince Edward Island alone I have identified more than 60 pre-WW1 cards and the numbering sequence suggests there are at least 75 with a high probability of a lot more. If anyone can help interpret the numbering sequence, usually in the format XXX-XX I would be most appreciative. There doesn’t seem to be a specific number for a province or a city – I have several sequences for Charlottetown for example. I have just posted a revised illustrated catalogue of the P.E.I. cards that I am aware of at https://straitpost.wordpress.com/publisher-lists/pugh-postcards-of-prince-edward-island/
Of you can simple search for “Straitpost” and drill down from there. I would be interested in learning of additional PEI Pugh series or the titles of the missing cards in the listing.
Thanks for your question, Harry. We will see if anyone is doing work on Pugh Manufacturing beyond the limited information in our publisher biography. The first three digits in the numbering series would likely have represented a specific “order” from a retailer or wholesaler in PEI. If there were repeated orders, there would presumably have been various numeric designations that wouldn’t be consecutive because other non-PEI orders would have been fulfilled in the meantime.
I’ve come to recognize that most publishers weren’t engaged in a grand, patriotic program of printing up postcards of the whole country, after which they hoped to sell what they’d produced. Rather, a company like Pugh was principally an order-taker or middleman that would receive submitted photos (e.g. of PEI scenes) and then send them off to the printers in Germany (typically) to have postcards made from them. Once received, the finished cards would be dispatched by Pugh to the local distributor or retailer for sale. Some companies were probably more active and actually did send photographers out to take photos — e.g. I’d expect Valentine & Sons mostly worked in that way. It’s all guesswork, of course. (Andrew Cunningham, Editor, Card Talk)
We have an old paper bag made by J.C.Wilson paper Co Montreal Showing an advert. For WM.Simpson & son ,dealer in Dry Goods at Ethel Ont. With a picture of a Steam train arriving at the store and a large group of people waiting on Simpson ‘s freight in black sketch . We would like to know what year this may have been produced and any other information. The paper bag was used as a back to a picture .
Good question. Paper bags were a major product line for J.C. Wilson in the 1890s but we will have to see whether anyone else reading this knows more about the exact span of time over which the company manufactured them (or whether anyone is familiar with the advertisement you describe). Ethel is in Grey County, west of Listowel.
In regards to the Halifax Explosion cards mentioned, there were at least 27 Novelty Mfg. cards produced and also at least 32 by Cox Bros. These #’s reflect the findings of Ken MacDonald that he published in his catalogue “Postcards of Halifax Regional Municipality (First Edition)”.
Also of note regarding the Novelty Mfg. cards that were copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood, they are some of the only known postcard photographs taken by prolific Halifax photographer Wallace R. MacAskill. He did sign a few real photo cards but only a very few. He is however suspected of having contributed greatly to Halifax’s body of postcard images, especially for MacLachlan Studios.
Thanks for the information, which is exactly what we were hoping to find. We’re more than open to a follow-up article if anyone out there wants to write one up! Otherwise I’ll just put a note in the next CT.
MacAskill’s story sounds similar to that of Winnipeg’s Lewis Foote, who is the iconic local photographer of the first half of the 20th century while having only a handful of lithographed and real photo postcards to his name (that we know of). It’s always a thrill to find one.
I have visited your page twice and enjoyed reading some of your detailed articles. While I no longer remember when I acquired my first vintage postcard, I did belong to the Vancouver and Saint John, N.B. clubs for a time in the mid-1980s. Currently I web-publish THE LOST VALLEY BLOG which explores the history of Saint John, New Brunswick [290 articles so far]. Frequently I employ cards as illustrations as they are often the only evidence of vanished streetscapes, industries, landmarks etc.
The current article “A Penny Worth of History” (May 8, 2017) describes Bruce ERB, an accountant who was a very serious philatelist, and who took his postcard exchanges very seriously. I published a sampling from an exchange he did with an advanced collector in Portugal from 1914-15, and I feel certain other knowledgeable postcard historians will have encountered Erb’s mailings. If any of you can add to the story I would be happy to append your remarks to the article. Googling “The Lost Valley Blog” will be sufficient to find my web publication.
The second instalment of the article is now web-published.
It is entitled “ISAAC ERB – The Postcard King”, and I do feel that
with these two articles I have broken new ground. There is certainly more to
discover. Our work is collaborative as well as cumulative, which is why I
invite comments from card experts in your Club. It would help to learn, for
instance, the purchase prices or contractual arrangement between firms
like Valentine and Sons, and Canadian photographers.
Again, the articles are easily found by Googling THE LOST VALLEY BLOG
The blog is very interesting. There is definitely a lot there that would interest postcard collectors. I have the thick Saint John card with the door and accordion-style fold out images that you mention in your post 291. It’s an example of a Warwick Bros. & Rutter “Series 59” card (according to the numbering in the WB&R guide book). Those cards appear to have been produced by the Rotograph Co. of New York (and marketed by Warwick Bros. in Canada). There are eight known Canadian cards of this type, of which three are from New Brunswick – Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton.
I haven’t heard anything about purchase prices or contractual arrangements, although I would expect that some of that information is out there somewhere — perhaps you will receive a response as a result of this posting. If you’re able to attribute common Valentine & Sons or other postcard images to Erb or anyone else, please keep us informed.
You might want to give some thought to joining our club so you can get our magazine 3x per year — we have members from nearly every province so it by no means just a Toronto thing.
Inspired by the recent publication on the TPC site of very useful and interesting histories of smaller postcard publishers I have added a number of pages to my StraitPost site to include capsule histories and checklists of several P.E.I. publishers (although retailers or distributors may be the more accurate term). These pages include histories of several small firms whose name appears as publishers on P.E.I. cards as well as illustrated checklists for those firms and for P.E.I. cards from national publishers such as Pugh and Warwick Bros. & Rutter. The pages can be found at https://straitpost.wordpress.com/publisher-lists/
Both the histories and lists are works in progress and I am interested in any information which can correct errors or add to the completeness of the records. The companies included to date are: R.F. Maddigan, Taylor’s Book Store, Pugh Manufacturing, and Warwick Bros. and Rutter with work continuing on the Charlottetown firms Haszard and Moore, and Carter and Company
PS – On the prairies, there were grain elevators in the majority of villages and towns, so even the smallest place will usually have BEVs taken from an impressive height.
Hi! Sorry for any confusion. It is a bird’s eye view. The story is that I discovered the newspaper clipping, which mentioned 4 bird’s eye views (BEVs) in the series. I have most of the cards myself, including the other 3 BEVs, but there are some that I know only as titles on Wayne and Philip’s master list. When I saw that the clipping referred to a BEV from Calgary, I assumed that it must be an entirely new card because there wasn’t anything on the list entitled “Bird’s eye view of Calgary” or anything similar (the other 3 BEVs do have such titles). But now that I’ve actually seen the above card “in the flesh”, I realize that it is the BEV in question. I just didn’t figure that out on the basis of the title alone – I think I assumed it would be a picture of some cattle at a market. So — the moral of the somewhat uninteresting story — the “Calgary BEV” referred to in the clipping isn’t the elusive Card #36 at all. It was just one of the ones on the list of 35 that I hadn’t seen.
Great to see more information about the Canadian Postcard Publisher histories. There are probably scores, if not hundreds of local, regional and national publishers out there and additional information about them is most welcome. Lots of confusion still about differences between publishers and printers and in some sources the terms seem to be used interchangeably.
I am curious as to why this would not be classified as a “bird’s eye view”. I am not familiar with Calgary at the time but the photo seems to be from a high vantage point. What buildings would have been in the City at the time which would have the height to give this view? Given the aerial technology at the time I suspect that most birds eye views were from steeples, towers or high vantage points. If so, how is this different?
I just found a pic of my father and his brother, in Vancouver around 1930, in one of these planes. My mother (age 90 and a wealth of info), said a man hauled the plane around neighbourhoods taking pics of kids and of course charging the parents for prints. It is a great photo and I am happy to have found it and to have read more about the plane on this post! The boys are maybe age 8 and 6. My mother’s sister remembers a horse, but never a plane.
Thanks, to you and your mom and aunt, for the direct memories of the way these postcards were made. That confirms what we had guessed must have been the case. Few kids in the 1930s (even today) wouldn’t have wanted to climb into in one of these planes, so the business had potential!
Nicely done, I am one of the lucky ones that has collected these cards over the years, me and my family worked for the hotel company back in the day, and my father use to work with some of the employees that were on some of the cards.
I have a postcard of mom and aunt in the 1934 vancouver plane as well as an earlier postcard without a year but say “Miss Vancouver” and “Spirit of Youth” same plane. Just wondering what year this one might be
Not really sure — it would be very likely to have come from the1930-1934 period, but it’s hard to say for certain. Can you send an image? (I didn’t see one with your note).
Photographers would go door to door, often with a prop, maybe a pony, but in this case, an airplane. Dress up the kids, put them in the plane, out front of the house – a postcard and prints or whatever for a precious depression dollar. This is my educated guess as to what we are seeing.
I’m sure some company in western Canada had a few planes made up and sent out their photographers to canvas the suburban neighbourhoods for a few years until the novelty wore off.
This is actually pretty cool. What kid in the 30s wouldn’t want a picture in an airplane like that?
Maybe the kids out west weren’t as impressed with ponies, but I remember them coming around here in Ontario. Not to mention, an airplane won’t sh*t on your lawn!
Yes, that makes a lot of sense — I’m quite certain you must be correct. It explains why they were always out on the sidewalk, which seemed too improbable to be coincidence. It also explains why the scenes have the air of an “event”, which might not have been the case if the kids were playing in a plane they played in every day. Thanks for your reply!
We were in touch with the aviation history society about this, and while one of their members had a couple of additional examples, he hadn’t researched it much further. However, he did point out that it wouldn’t have been uncommon for plans for home-made “planes” to be found in widely-read woodworking and home craftsman magazines. However, that still doesn’t quite account for the concentration of these images in, and (to my knowledge thus far) only in, western Canada. Perhaps more will come of it as more people see the blog post. (It isn’t exactly common to find photo postcards of 1930s-era children playing with toys or models — the fact that there are so many showing this exact item suggests that there is more to the story and that the creation of such images was being encouraged by someone for some unknown reason). — Andrew
Thanks for your help, Cameron. I’d since seen a reference to the image and its origin — on your blog? — but hadn’t yet updated the post. Guelph it is! — Andrew
I am a view Pioneer post card and folder collector. 1) Does anyone have any info or images of a Wirths Folder (1898) made of a Canadian City? Wirths Folders were made in the USA (1898-1903) and a 1956 book says that some Canadian examples exist.
2) any info on which Canadian (Toronto?)printer printed the Epworth or Victorian Expo Postcards of 1897? Thanks
My late father … was born in Toronto in 1917. Among his papers is a postcard, made in Canada, where the picture is a black and white photo of a young boy, about 4 years old. He certainly resembles my father as a boy, but nothing is printed on the postcard that it is my father. Was it a practice in those days to have a postcard made of one’s children? Or perhaps my grandparents were struck by the picture’s likeness to their little son. Is there a website where I could search postcards of children? Can you help? Thank you.
Hi Lorraine. Thanks for the question. It was indeed a common practice to have postcards made in this way. Most photography studios offered postcard prints and there would also be itinerant photographers who would produce “real photo” portrait postcards at fairs or at the beach or anywhere that people congregated. Countless millions of postcards of this type would have been produced worldwide between 1900 and about 1930, after which time the practice became rarer as people increasingly tended to take their own family photos rather than rely on professional photographers. If the image on the postcard looks like your father as a boy, it very probably is just that.
I just saw on internet a photo from 1910 from Canadian Post Card Co., Toronto.
It is photo of harvesting corn. Corn size of 6 feet and diameter of around 2 feet. It is a photo of a Tartarian people. Do you have any tip how to find more of those photos.
We call this type of postcard an ‘exaggeration’. There are many different views with the common element a very large subject that otherwise would not be so big. If you look at internet postcard sellers, EBay for example, you may find more that appeal to you. They may or may not have ‘Tartarians’ in the view.
I’m not sure about smoking but the PC may have something to do with negative reactions to the adoption of cars. That would explain why the two dead people are motoring, at a time when it was still reserved largely for the well-to-do. See http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/murder-machines/
I am looking to buy a postcard of St Joseph’s hospital in downtown Toronto. I was born there in 1955. Also any photos of Old Toronto, Zorra St in particular. Thank you so much.
Regarding the comment above from David F. Rhodes. My Great Grandmother was Nellie Murphy, who married George R. Warwick, of Toronto, (my Great Grandfather), whom I remember. I would like to find out your lineage with Denis Murphy. To anyone else who reads this, I would like to learn more about the Warwick family. Also any info or old ephemera on William Warwick, and Warwick Bros. & Rutter. Thanks.
IN REGARDS TO MYSTERY POSTCARD #1, I BELIEVE THE AIRCRAFT IS PRE-1938, NC DENOTES AMERICAN COMMERCIAL REGISTRATION. IT IS POSSIBLY A MAIL PLANE FROM A U.S. CITY, MAYBE A FIRST FLIGHT FROM ? TO SUDBURY. I’LL CHECK FURTHER AS TO FIRST FKIGHT DELIVERIES TO SUDBURY FROM AMERICA IN THE 1930s THEREABOUTS. DAVE H.
Is there a checklist for Canadian Post Card Company’s real photo exaggerated postcards taken from images by William H. Martin from Ottawa, Kansas, USA. I believe these cards were first released in 1910 and continued for some time. Any help would be appreciated.
Just wondering how many J.Ed.Terryberry postcards there are? I have two cards and his own personal photo album witch I inherited all photos of Toronto and the Muskoka’s dated back to the early 1880’s just wondering if some of the photos could be real photo cards if any one knows please let me know thanks and have a wonderful day Geoff
Does anyone know where I can find an archive of postcards produced by Constable Picture Postcards of Canada? My great grand father is said to be featured on one around 1902. He won the world Ploughing Championship. Thank you.
I am a recent member of the club and most recently attended my first Post Card Show at the Japanese Cultural Center. I had a great time, and came out with a lot of cards for my collection, new contacts, some great stories and stiff neck !
I collect Toronto RPPC, Toronto Photographs and ephemera pre 1960. However I am also looking for help in locating post cards produced in Romania from 1960-1980 by a photographer by the name of Tibor Lowy.
If anyone knows of collectors of Romanian post cards from this time period, please email me at victor78@sympatico.ca
I look forward to meeting fellow members at the upcoming meeting in April.
I have recently been collecting postcards to do with Weston, Ontario for the benefit of the Weston Historical Society. I’m aware of Weston postcards at least as early as 1904 and as late as 1966. Many of these postcards appear to be parts of sets. In some instances the sets appear to be local, and in other instances the Weston postcards seem to be part of a broader set. Does anyone know how many sets of Weston postcards were produced?
I would like to know how collectors catalogue post cards ? And what the best method for storing post cards is.
As I have some very old cards is there is a way to value the collection? Or is it a market drive force for value ?
As I am completely new to this subject any help and advice would be useful.
Good questions! Where to start. Probably the quickest way to learn is to connect with other collectors through a postcard club or postcard show. We list Canadian clubs on the ‘connections’ pages of this web-site and there is a show calendar page too.
As for storage, most of us keep our postcards in binders in archival binder pages with 4 to a page so that both the view side and the stamp side can be seen. You can get (with difficulty in Canada) archival quality plastic as well as regular plastic sleeves in various configurations. See the FAQ page for sources of these supplies. Another method is in a shoe-box or similar, or boxes such as the dealers use. This has the disadvantage of not being acid free storage and the postcard edges may be damaged by flipping through them to find a particular one.
The cataloging question has as many answers as there collectors, I suspect. Some just have a razor sharp memory. Filing by roughly the geography of the street/building is common. A larger collection might warrant a detailed Excel list with the card’s title, publisher, a general description of the view/subject for example. Dealers keep their inventory by country/province (state)/county/ town or topic (animals, Easter, bridges etc.) Some collectors collect a series for which the manufacturer/publishers numbers on the cards is the basis of their system.
As to valuations, look at our FAQ page for our insights. Yes, it’s market driven to some extent. The card has to find a collector who wants it and who wants to pay for it. A collector may pass on a $2.00 card that doesn’t speak to them but will jump on something special that’s $20.00 or more. The condition of the card affects the price as does its scarcity. Some like the time stamp of the cancellation, others prefer a pristine item. On the other hand, postal history buffs often look for unusual postmarks and stamps on old postcards. In the world of deltiology, the ‘real photo’ postcard of a known subject is the most prized. Modern ‘chromes’ are inexpensive today but 50 years from now may be highly collectible because fewer seem to be kept. And of course, as with all vintage items, the value to a collector is what they feel it’s worth as an addition to their collection.
I am also trying to date a postcard showing a monument in Québec City, which was manufactured by The Post Card & Greeting Card Co. Ltd of Toronto. I know my postcard has been published after 1908, but any information about the company’s dates of activity whould be appreciated!
I am looking for old and new postcards of the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu region which includes: St. John, Iberville, St-Luc, L’Acadie, St-Blaise, St-Paul-de-l’île-aux-Noix, Lacolle, Noyan and Napierville. If you have any, please get in touch. simonneboudreau@hotmail.com
Hi! I’ve just discovered your discussion thread. I too think I’m a descendant of Joseph Warwick, the founder, through my maternal grandmother, Beatrice Warwick, and am keen to research further. All web info (inc “Rootsweb” chat too) has been most useful in trying to sort out mass of Warwicks in Montreal & Quebec but I’m still confused! Would love to hear more from you (esp Joan Rooney, Wendy and Janet Wilford) and swop what I know, if it will help.Many thanks for your input so far.
Hello
I’m trying to get an unused colour postcard of “Le Parc des Champs de Bataille” (Battlefield Park, Quebec) published by Les editions Lumen, no. C.P. 48031. I’m in England so any help to point me in the right direction would be much appreciated!
Many thanks!
My Great Grandfather, Denis Murphy, had a daughter named Nellie who married George R. Warwick of Toronto. I would love to know if they had children and any current relatives.
I am looking for a copy of the Ridgetown Golf Club postcard, probably from the 1930’s. It shows a man putting and some women golfers. In the backgound is the clubhouse.
I’m looking for a postcard of Malvern (Scarborough) Ontario. The photo is of the intersection of Sheppard Avenue and Markham Road. It looks like a tiny little country lane. On the left of the photo is the Cowan’s Store and on the right is the Calendar’s Hotel / Standard Bank (this was once my family’s home). If someone could help me locate this card I would be grateful and I would be prepared to pay good money for one. A few photos of the house can be found here –> http://www.flickr.com/photos/sew_luvli/sets/72157604496979128/ The most distinctive feature of the house is the cross and circle medallion which sits just below the peak of the roof on the North side of the house.
Hello!
Can you call to mind any articles that have passed by your desk over the years that might include details of the lives of Commercial Travelling Salesmen who worked for Wm. Warwick & Son?
I see from a series of Toronto City Directories that my Great Grandfather was employed as a “Traveller” for Wm. Warwick through the 1880s and early 1890s. (He seem to have switched to Copp Clark Publishing by the turn of the Century.) I know that “the family story” is that he traveled great distances and was away for extended periods of time. I am curious about the area (distances) that he may have covered and what kind of routine or frequency would be involved in covering such a market?
Thank you so much for any leads, insights, consideration you can offer!
Gillian Fosdick
George Charles Warwick
Born: Sept 25th, 1894
Enlisted in the Canadian Field Artillery
Charles Ernest Warwick & Gertrude Emily Warwick (parents)
died April 9, 1918 (battle of vimy ridge)
I am looking for a postcard and info therof,published by Warwick Bro’s & Rutter Publishing Limited, Toronto, entitled ” General View Stellarton N.S.” …published for Cameron’s Drug Store (Medical Hall) 243 … Does anyone have information on this since I am the present owner of the drug store but have never in my search came across the name Cameron ??
I am studying Shell Oil Co emblem ‘Scallop’ on postcards and covers (both sides) any country any era including ex Canada. Has any one any availability or information especially cards I believe C.1937/8 from countries outside Canada to Canadian destinations I gather these organised by Shell Co, Canada?
I am also researching the Warwick family, my principal interest is Joseph Warwick ( born Montreal 1821) as I am a direct descendant.
I’d be interested in information from anyone collecting “Warwick” postcards
I am researching the family of this William Warwick, and have learned that his parents were William Warwick, Sr. and Alice Chisholm who married at Christ Church Anglican, Montreal in 1836. I have more info on this Warwick family from Leeds,Yorkshire, who first started an Iron foundry in Montreal in 1817.
Hi . I am looking for any postcards or paper from Drumbo ontario and area. This is in oxford county ontario.Other towns im interested in this area are Princeton , Plattsville, Wolverton, Washington, Richwood, Bright, Innerkip,Gobals. Thanks
Years ago, I used to be an avid collector, and a member of the TPC. On the occassion of the 10th Anniversary of the Toronto Post Card Club in 1977 I produced a video dedicated to the activities of our club. Some of you may have a copy of this CD.
I want to invite you to view it on YouTube, where is appears under the heading The Toronto Post Card Club, 10th Anniversary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkxbSuWAmPQ&feature=related
There are 6 segments posted there, and you will see most of our old club founding members there. I am releasing it in commemoration of our past president Wilf Cowin.
Upper Canada College, Toronto, Canada
My interest area is small, but as a former student, I am collecting memorabilia- history, school crest, postcards about the life and times of the college. I have a collection of postcards, but would like to know more about them, and learn if I am missing any. I would appreciate any help and assistance anyone is willing to provide. Sincerely.. Stephen Burkart
I am looking for a specific postcard: a mint (unused) 1932? THE CANADA SEPIA SCENES #354 – Street Scene, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I would very much appreciate it if you could direct me to someone who has the card, or can tell me where I may find one. I can be reached at: brianmoir at telus.net Thanks!
Hello
I’ve a question on the possible date of Card number 437739. Also, I suspect I am not the only one wondering about the whereabouts of the photo archive for these types of cards. Has anyone ever located the negatives archives?
I don’t know if anyone has tried to find the archives. Given that the company existed relatively recently (1950s), there could be a chance of finding them but on the whole it is very unusual for any records of postcard companies to survive.
Card number 437739 would have been produced in 1929 at the factory of C. G. Röder in Leipzig. See Mike Smith’s “The Rumsey & Co. Picture Postcard Handbook” (2024), available from Mike Smith Books.
Hello,
I am hoping that someone in your club might be able to help me.
My great uncle, W. Worth Davis was a jeweler/watch maker and a very serious collector of Canadian and British Commonwealth stamps. He also took pictures of Main Street Tillsonburg and of some private homes and had them made into “photocards” (sorry, I’m not sure if I am using the correct term here).
Uncle Worth’s daughter, Martha (Davis) Walcot ultimately took over his stamp collection and she helped get me started collecting Canadian stamps. Martha spent years trying to track down some of her father’s postcards without any luck. I have taken up the search, but have not found any either. I do not know if Uncle Worth’s name is on the front or back of his postcards (or perhaps the name of his jewelry store [E.F. Davis Jewelers], but I do know that there were at least a dozen or so different postcards.
Might any of your members have any of these cards or know who might? I would really like to try to find some as they are part of our family history. I realize this is probably a wild goose chase, but any help that you might be able to offer me would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you very much,John Macdonald
Hi John, I will try to remember to include a note about this in the next edition of Card Talk. We have quite a few members from the London, Ont., area. – Andrew Cunningham, Editor, Card Talk
Is there a complete list of cards from Albertype for Landahls in Dawson City? I live in the Yukon, a avid early Yukon collector. I have 57. Thanks, Dave
Yes, Ken Elder’s “A History and Directory of Yukon Postcards 1897-1942” is an extremely thorough guide to Yukon postcards, including Landahl’s (57 is an impressive number – you should join the TPC!) The book is available from Mike Smith Books.
What if anything is the significance of a postcard marked “proof”?
Hi Isobel. Quite sure that ‘proof’, probably on the back of your card? means it was a sample sent by the publisher to the client as a last check before it was printed for the client. Sometimes you see ones that have details of what title is wanted and the order quantity. Certainly a postcard that falls under the topic of ‘deltiology’.
Hello.
I have some Silk postcards from the 1900.s. from family to family.
Are they worth anything?
Hi Sian, Silk postcards are usually worth at least a couple of dollars apiece. But for a minority of them, the values can go much higher. It depends on what is depicted on them, the quality of the artwork, how uncommon the design is (some are very common and therefore not too valuable) and their condition. Usually the more connected they are to specific military themes, the more valuable they are, but that’s just a generalization that doesn’t hold true all of the time. Some of the non-military themes can be quite desirable too. – Andrew Cunningham, TPC.
The Canadian Post Card Co. was founded in early 1910 by Donald Alexander Lynn of Toronto. Donald A. Lynn was the manager of the Underwood & Underwood office in Toronto from 1897 to 1910. The Toronto office of U&U was a major one and every one of the millions of U&U stereo views have the name Toronto on them. Lynn knew that the U&U company was founded by the two Underwood Brothers out of their home in Ottawa, Kansas. The two brothers started selling stereo views door to door. U&U became the largest photographic company in the world.
Ottawa, Kansas was also the home of well known photographer W. H. “Dad” Martin, who was the best creator, ever, of exaggerated images for RPPC cards. Martin was a good friend of the two Underwood brothers and around 1900 took photos for U&U. Lynn of course knew about the exaggerated postcards published by Martin. Martin postcards had been widely distributed by U&U employees. Lynn left the U&U company in early 1910 and created the CPPC for the sole purpose of distributing the Martin exaggeration RPPC’s in Canada. Lynn, of course, knew about the Martin postcards. Ottawa, Kansas was also a name on everyone of the millions of U&U stereo views.
From 1910 to 1912 the CPPC company distributed forty-four of the Martin exaggeration postcards in Canada. Martin made around sixty exaggerated images for his postcards. The earliest CPPC postcards featuring Martin images are postmarked April/May 1910. There are many CPPC postcards postmarked in 1910. The CPPC postcards distributed in Canada were made in Ottawa, Kansas at the Martin Post Card Co. and had the “Martin” type handwriting on them, the CPPC name on them but, very interestingly, did not have anything on them about W. H. “Dad” Martin or his Martin Post Card Company founded in September of 1908.
When Martin stopped making postcards in 1912, the CPPC, of course, could not distribute any more of them in Canada. The CPPC then started making some of their own exaggerations about fish. They made fifteen such exaggerations in 1913. In 1923 the CPPC started making ten new exaggerated fish RPPC’s every two years. They did this for many years. In the later years of the CPPC they reproduced and distributed RPPC’s showing the Martin images again and also all of the exaggerated fish images they had created. The CPPC could never make any exaggeration photographic images which were as good as the ones made by W.H. “Dad” Martin in Ottawa, Kansas. (Additional information about the CPPC will be posted here soon.)
I will be glad to correspond about the history of CPPC and the Martin Post Card Co., etc. Contact Morgan Williams, P. O. Box 2607, Washington, D.C. 20013 or morganw9185@gmail.com. Co-author of the book, “Larger Than Life, The American Tall-Tale Postcard, 1905-1915,1980. Major contributor to the “Illustrated Checklist of Real Photo Post Cards by William H. “Dad” Martin, Ottawa Kansas 1908 to 1912,” 2005. by Dennis McBurney, sponsored by the Wichita Postcard Club, Wichita, Kansas.
Mystery card #8 is from Wiarton, Ontario.
I have 2 team hockey cards from 1913 and 1914 and they both have the same star with a W as noted on mystery card. NHL looks like it could have been added later for some unknown reason (to confuse?). As noted the NHL didn’t come into existance until 1917 and of course Wiarton didn’t have a team!! Some of the band members look similar to some of the hockey players on my cards.
A few of us are researching the real photo postcards of The Winnipeg Photo Company of Napinka. These cards are usually imprinted on either the front inscription or the reverse. We estimate that there may as many as 6000 different images of which we have approximately 600 in our listing. These images depict mostly southwestern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan. The range extends from Winnipeg to Regina. Any information, images, or examples we can add to our listing would be appreciated. The group has a Facebook Group “The Winnipeg Photo Company – Napinka Postcards”. Your participation is welcome.
Postcard taken by Photogelatine Engraving Co. Limited , Ottawa, in your archives , is it possible to know in what year this card was produced ?
If the vertical dividing line on the back between the message portion and address side is a full length line with a ball or medallion as we say, on the end, and if that medallion says PECO Toronto, it’s post their Ottawa tenure, so 1947 or after. If the dividing line is not the medallion type and is shorter with a small curlicue or drop-shaped end to this line, it’s an earlier printing, from about 1921 to 1930. These dates are gathered from a study by some TPC members examining their collection for the postal cancellations on PECO postcards. As such, these dates are approximate.
My mother has a very early picture of my father sitting in a plane that looks like the first 1934 Winnipeg model. He was born in 1932 and looks to be around 3 years old and is wearing an aviator’s cap. It is one of my most favourite pictures as I think it captures the innocence of his childhood that would later become very tragic and difficult. I was always very curious regarding its origin. I’ll have to relook at the photo and pay attention to the date on the plane.
I have a photo of my mother in a plane like this. It was taken in New Westminster, BC, probably 1932, 1933.
Nice to hear of more and more of these! I’m not sure my grandparents would have sprung for this for my dad, although he was born in 1936 so likely just a little too late to have had the opportunity of trying to convince them
Thanks – they are wonderful images and appear to have been largely unique to western Canada although the general idea of using a prop (including live animals like ponies and goats) as a mobile photo studio was a venerable one by this era.
Yes, it is a little hard to tell but it looks like there might have been a series of 6 or 8 cards with western (RNWMP and indigenous) themes, of which #24 was one. They are actually among the harder ones to find and there are some gaps in the listing at that point (made more difficult by the fact that there is a second set of cards with the same numbering by C.S. Co., which muddies the picture somewhat).
For mystery #7 I cannot help you with the photographer, however I can narrow the dates down. (Details adjacent the view)
WOW!! We now know the answer to one of the questions. Thanks John, for your very detailed explanation of what this view is depicting.
Could you tell me if James Dunn lived at 775 Thornton Ave by the train station?
Hi, no idea. Sir James Dunn was one of Canada’s most famous industrialists, and one of its wealthiest men, but he came from fairly humble origins in Bathurst. While he left the town at an early age to find his fortune, his mother remained there until her death in 1918. The biography written about him by his friend and fellow New Brunswicker Lord Beaverbrook, entitled “Courage”, begins with some recollections of Sir James’ family and boyhood in Bathurst.
I was wondering if anyone could let me know when explanatory captions began to be added to the message side of postcards. Thanks for any information you can provide.
Interesting question! I thought the answer would be easy – in the later years, after printing presses became so mechanized and postcard production relatively, less costly. However looking at my collection I found a description of the view on the back that was used in 1915. Maybe there’s a connection to offset printing that began around 1912. Perhaps postcards as an advertising media was also a catalyst. In any case, I think that the answer is to start to note earliest known dates from looking at postcards wherever you can. Send us an update if you find one that’s earlier than 1915!
Sir
In cleaning. Out our house for a move we came over a picture catalogue of very old post cards Many seem to b a hundred years old. I was wondering where I could go to have someone look at them as I know nothing about post cards I would like to know if they are of any value before I discard them
Thanks for your help
Ian Murray
As to valuations, look at our FAQ page for our insights. Also you can look at actual sold prices using the advanced search option in EBay by checking the ‘sold’ box. The condition of the card affects the price as does the scarcity. Some like the time stamp of the cancellation, others prefer a pristine item. On the other hand, postal history buffs often look for unusual postmarks and stamps on old postcards. In the world of deltiology, the ‘real photo’ postcard of a known subject is the most prized. Modern ‘chromes’ are inexpensive today but 50 years from now may be highly collectible because fewer seem to be kept. And of course, as with all vintage items, the value to a collector is what they feel it’s worth as an addition to their collection.
That’s fun! Ah yes, the misprint or print error. They do exist; things like a wrong trim, colour register errors and incorrect spelling or titles that don’t match the view. eBay has almost 100 offerings of this type at the moment. By the way, we call those waterfall foldout views a postcard ‘folder’. Not to be confused with a booklet which is several postcards attached together, usually on the left side, and often perforated to facilitate being torn out to use.
My wife’s grandfather J-A Lemire is on one of the postcards. Her younger sister has the original portrait. I just found out about the postcard. I will start looking for his, either on line or in antique malls. I wish I had known about these postcards years ago. I would be very interested in obtaining the one postcard of J.A. Lemire, station master, Windsor Station, Montreal. If anyone has an extra of this card or could put me in contact with someone who does, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
We have a similar postcard picture to those you have posted in the Spirit of Childhood plane article. Ours is of my mother-in-law in 1933
in Vancouver and I am certain, based on the visible marks on the end of the wing, that it is the exact same plane seen marked 1934 in your article.
The plane was probably repainted the next year when the photographer took it around Vancouver seeking clients.
Thanks, Dan. That would make sense. I just picked up an “Edmonton 1931” recently as well. It seems to have been a way to pick up some cash in the worst years of the Great Depression. By the mid-30s, the little airplanes seem to have been gone.
Hi, Stuart from Scotland here. From about 1936 till early 1950’s 2 ice hockey teams played in Perth,Scotland. These were recruited by a local millionaire who was obsessed with ice hockey and brought over players from North America,mainly Canadians. I have a postcard of one of the teams ‘Perth Panthers’ 1938-39 with players names eg Bob Purdie, Les Japp 9 more. Looking for more information re: these players/teams. As well, cards slightly bigger than postcard size were issued by the local paper. Thanks for any insights.
I have some postcards I am curious about, 1 is HRH prince of Wales #176, Warwick bros &rutter
2nd is H..M King Edward VII #146
3rd is Queen Alexandra #147
How can I learn more about these or there value
On the TPC website in the FAQ section there is an overview of how to value vintage postcards. Have a look there.
I have 10 of them, the collection which is Japan, Java, India, China Sea, Bangkok, the Philipines, Maples, Riviera, Greece and Madeira, all in excellent condition which are all framed from Flora Nash DeMuth
Hello All, I have been looking at a postcard on e-bay and after it’s title in brackets it says 57.2. Can anyone tell me what these numbers mean? The title if I remember correctly is Gathering rice near Gore’s Landing Rice Lake (57.2).
I am seeking information about a postcard supplier under the name “R. Archambault who was active in Montreal about 1906. I have a card with this name overprinted on a Valentine & Sons card of Prince Edward Island. Do other collectors have cards with the Archambault overprint. For details see https://straitpost.wordpress.com/2021/04/01/the-real-mccoy-really/
A query. Does anyone have information on a Canadian postcard publisher which operated under the name “Small-wares (or Smallwares) Distributions Company” of Toronto? They seem to have been active in the 1940s and 1950s. I have encountered cards when looking at multi-location use of view images. The name does not appear on the cards but the wordmark S.D.C. bracketed above and below by “made in Canada” appears in the card’s “T” line. In appearance the cards have a similar format to the Miller Art cards from the 1930. I have found reference and seen cards from P.E.I,. Quebec, Ontario, and B.C. locations but I expect they supplied cards across the country
Your query popped up when I did a search for “Made in Canada S.D.C” as I have a postcard entitled “Greetings from Deep River, Canada, Ontario, Canada” with this same identification in the “T” line. The image on my postcard also appears on postcards with the titles “Greetings…” from two Nova Scotian locations and a location in Quebec, all of which I have found using reverse image lookup. Each of these postcards has the same identification on the reverse; my card is dated in the 1950s as well. Interesting!
You note that a in complete listing of the CS cards is available. Is it online and if so can I get the link
Hi, the listing was sold as a small coil-bound volume a number of years ago and is not available online. If there are specific questions we could see if we could help.
I have a #24 which is titled Indian Medicine Men. Just wondered when it was printed etc. was it a single card or from a series.
Hello, I just had a thought. Am I the only one who collects postcards, but has never received one? It’s a silly thing to ask however during this time of Covid I seem to have a lot of think time.
Are we able to donate postcards to your club?
We always try to find a home for vintage postcards among our membership or at postcard shows. Our mailing address can be found on the ‘Contact’ page of this website.
Hello – I started my collection of ww1 postcards depicting Sikh and Indian soldiers. Since I’m new to this my research is primarily on eBay. Can you direct me to other areas where I can find such postcards ? Happy to discuss via phone as well. Thanks Raveen
Other postcard internet sellers can be found at hippostcard.com and delcampe.net. Also a suggestion that as I believe that Indian soldiers were more aligned with Britain that the European versions of the above and EBay.co.uk might be better resources for you.
What an amazing, detailed, interesting part of Ontario’s history to learn about. Thank you so much, Ken Elder! I have a 1924 35″ x 10″ roll-out panoramic photo of Niagara Falls, printed by the Photogelatin Engraving Co. From your notes above, it would have been one of first products the company made, within its first 3 years of existence. What a neat thing to know. I found the photo rolled up in a box of old family photographs that my grandmother gave me. The photo belonged to my great-grandmother, who emigrated to Canada from England, in 1909. It’s so incredible that this photo still exists, nearly 100 years later! I’m having it framed this week. =)
Hi Karen,
I have the same Niagara Falls panoramic photo (1924) in the original woodwn frame, here in the Netherlands!
Do you know if this might be a collectors’ item?
Vincent van Haasteren
Sorry to say, but not likely a collector’s item. Views of Niagara Falls must be one of the most plentiful Canadian views. This view would have been sold widely and in quantity.
I’ve found the same thing in my St. Andrews, NB collection of Valentine cards. Now I find I am checking all cards for sale for such differences in sky and text in what otherwise appears to be same photo.
I am an avid collector of Harrison Fisher postcards.
I have one card Published by Detroit Publishing with the following stamp on the bottom of the card. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Do you have any ideas please.
The wording on the oval stamp is:- ENTERED ACCORDING TO THE ACT OF THE PARLIAMENT OF CANADA IN THE YEAR 1907 LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY AT THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
The card itself is from the Detroit Series published in 1902 depicting artwork by Harrison Fisher.
Thank you for your time
Cleve Whitworth From Australia
Hello and thanks for your question. To the best of my knowledge, that is a copyright notation. The federal Department of Agriculture was responsible for the administration of the Copyright Act of 1875 and, as such, was the depositary for copyrighted works in Canada in that era. That notation is seen on a few early Canadian postcards. In my experience the cards in question tend to be artist-illustrated cards, as yours is. In this case, it sounds as though the notation refers to the Harrison Fisher illustration itself, rather than the postcard on which it appears. Why Life Publishing Co., which was a U.S. company, deposited the image in Canada for copyright, and why Detroit Photo Co. specifically noted that fact on this particular postcard, is hard to say. But perhaps these illustrations were so popular that the U.S. rights-holder was particularly punctilious about asserting its copyright in Canada and other countries.
Andrew Cunningham
This is very helpful. I found a series of Timmins post cards in my parents’ basement and have always wondered when they are from. This research goes a ling way in helping me answer some questions. Thanks.
I have a Rumsey post card with a number 378803 it is titled Trout Fishing, Chipman, NB looking to date this post card. Any help appreciated
Hi, if you can send scans of the front and back (or iPhone pictures or whatever), we can have a look. The email is edit-r@t-r-nt-p-stcardclub.c-m with the dashes replaced with “o”. Postcards with general titles like “Trout Fishing” are sometimes just generic photos that didn’t really come from the place that they were sold in. So the first thing would be to watch out for that (unless it’s clearly in Chipman).
Hi Debra,
Most of Rumsey & Co.’s postcards were printed by a firm in Leipzig, Germany, whose card numbering can be linked to a calendar year. Card no. 378803 would have been published in 1925.
I have recently been looking closely at cards from unidentified publishers and have noticed a numbered series with a recognizable style. My cards are all from Prince Edward Island and I would be interested in thoughts as to the extent of this series for other provinces and who the publisher might be. The full details are published on my Straitpost blog site at https://straitpost.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/where-ever-two-or-three-are-gathered/
Great question … just going on the authority of Mike Smith, these seem to be MacFarlane cards. I made a comment to that effect on the blog. Not a common style, I would agree.
A friend sent me a link to this site, so as someone who has lived in the area for the last 26 years and been into(and worked in) the Barrington river many times perhaps I can offer a little insight. First off I don’t think you’re post card photo was taken in this area. There has never been a railroad in the area. The iron road was put in, in the sixties by a mining company for exploration work, and got it’s name because they were drilling to define the extent of an iron ore body on a mountain just to the east of the barrington river. The map you posted actually has the road misnamed as the original iron road is the road marked in yellow you see branch off to the right farther back on your map. The left fork that goes in to the barrington was put in around 1970-71, by a company called Integrated Resources to access their placer claims on the barrinton river. The 2 gray lines along the road you thought indicated the trestle, are actually an airstrip built by integrated resources to service there placer mining operation(too overgrown to be serviceable except by helicopter now). The original iron road(right fork), has been too overgrown to be passably for quite sometime now, but the integrated resources road has been kept passable as there are still active placer claims being worked in the barrington. There was a camp set as well on the old airstrip this past summer, as a helicopter base for a mining company doing some exploratory drilling in the mountains to the west of the barrington. Hope that helps although I’m guessing it wasn’t what you wanted to hear.
Thanks. That’s interesting and most welcome. Sounds like the search for an explanation must continue! It certainly sounded as though activity in the area went back to the turn of the last century, but information available online is very sketchy.
I am trying to get a date range and a photographer for a northern Ontario postcard. The postcard is an RPPC from Creighton Mine, which was in the Sudbury area. It’s printed on semi-gloss sepia paper and probably dates from 1915-25. I’ve never seen a back like this. You can see the images here.
Anyone out there with expertise on northern Ontario photographers who used this type of postcard stock? Thanks.
Hello:
Would everyone please watch for a postcard of The Old Homestead Harwood Rice Lake. This tourist camp will be in our family next year for 100 years. There were only 2 views of the camp printed. Many tourist came here from Ohio, Michigan and New York. I can be reached at olddhomestead1@gmail.com. Thanks.
I am trying to date an unnumbered black and white “Valentine & Sons Pub. Co. Ltd.,Toronto” postcard. The front is titled “Bird’s eye view of St. Andrews, N.B.
While the web site article on Valentine & Sons is very detailed and helpful, it does not refer to any unnumbered cards.
Hi Brett, Sometimes the numbers don’t appear because the card was cut a bit off-line in the production process, so that the number was inadvertently sliced off. Other cards just don’t seem to have been numbered at all, for whatever reason. I’d have to see the card to tell you much more than that. It doesn’t seem to be in our database. If it says “Valentine & Sons Pub. Co. Ltd., Toronto”, it would likely be pre-1920. You’re welcome to send me a scan (both sides, preferably, but at least the picture side) to edit-r@t-r-nt-p-stcardclub.c-m, substituting “o” for each hyphen. Regards, Andrew
Hello! I have been trying to find out about the Published by “Ballantine Bros.” Toronto Canada, postcards. I have 15 cards published by them but can not find any information like around what year they are. I would take a guess at about 1910 but I am interested in finding out more history of them. Thank you if anyone has any information.
A Google search of ‘Ballantine Bros Toronto’ brought a Toronto Reference Library result showing some of these cards in their postcard collection They suggest 1910 as the date of the view. A similar view of the Bond Street Church by Valentine & Sons is also in their collection. I would suggest that as ‘white border’ postcards, that the Ballantine Bros. cards were later reprints of the Valentine views which we know to have been published in the postcard Golden Age. On EBay you can see a back view and that these cards were printed by a USA printer. Perhaps Ballantine Bros. was merely a merchant who contracted their printing.
I recently acquired 10 RPPC postcards of Hamilton, ON. They measure approximately 1 1/4″ x 5 1/2″. Three of them were mailed in 1910. The cards were published by Rumsey & CO., Toronto, ON. On the address side, it says (imprime) Book Post Card.
Question: What are these cards called?. I checked eBay and googled the size but came up empty handed
From metropostcard.com, a comprehensive web-site on things postcard, this description from their glossary section: Bookmark Cards (Book Post Cards) A bookmark card is a novelty postcard that was manufactured for use as a bookmark rather than mailing, even though it could be mailed. These types of cards were largely printed in England between 1903 and 1904, with some being printed in Canada about 1910. Their most common size is 5 1/4 by 1 3/4 inches. They are also referred to as panel cards.
I’m related to William Robitow, trying to find out more about him!
I have a photo of my grandfather in a Calgary plane with the date 1931. I hope that clears up at least a small mystery.
Hi, Thanks! That sounds like one of the earliest examples, of those we’ve seen or heard about!
Does anyone know if the Parks went to holiday at Gore’s Landing Rice Lake? Better yet, does anyone know what Mrs. Parks looked like? I have a post card with a picture of Mrs. Parks sitting at waters edge.
Well done, a great help. thank you
You probably have seen this already, but the postcard with the Squirrel Peanut Butter evidently was taken around Christmas time. I’m not sure if that helps, but there are a number of boxes of Christmas crackers on display with the caption “Brock’s X-Mas Crackers” with an upside down clown and a monkey it seems, and on some boxes it says “Brock’s Fireworks” with a woman holding a fan in Chinese garb and three figures in the background. I see also on the top shelf near the Old Dutch packages some smaller packages that seem to say Victoria Cross. There does appear to be the depiction of a military cross on the packaging. There also seem to be some fancy boxes of chocolates in the photo. I thought I also espied a postcard with two girls walking. It can be seen on the counter, but it’s likely the cover of a box of chocolates as there seems to be a ribbon wrapped around it.
When looking for particular postcards we search for the location from where the card came from. Card dealers have done an excellent job in organizing their cards in boxes at card shows and on line auctions. This has been great for me as a collector, however I am finding it more difficult to locate cards I don’t have. I have now begun to collect cards from the area which I collect by the names of those who either sent the card or have received the card. Case in point I typed in the name of my grand-father on E-bay and one dealer had the smarts to post my grand-fathers name along with the view of the front of the card. The reverse was also shown. Needless to say I got the card. This could be another avenue for dealers to make more sales. On the other hand it might be too just much work.
That is a very good point. There was (and perhaps still is) one dealer from the UK who sells relatively low-value cards primarily as genealogical items. It’s not common to include names of senders or recipients, though. Something for dealers to think about!
Hello,
I am looking for historical information about Alex Wilson from Dryden, Ontario.
He printed many chrome postcards from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.
Regards,
CharlesB
He certainly did. Relatively few collectors specialize in chrome cards so information might be hard to come by.
Wilson’s was an office supply company that I believe originated in Dryden. There were other locations as well as I remember one in Thompson, Manitoba
My name is Stephen MacDonald. My father was born in Toronto in 1920. My single grandmother Isabel MacDonald lived in the Snowdon district of Montreal and in the 1950s had a roomer who’s name was TJ Pugh. He seemed to me, a ten year old, to be much older than her. She was born in Montreal in 1895 as Isabel Stead. ‘Uncle’ Tom was a toy wholesaler for Reliable Toys. His office was on St James(Jacques) St. When I found this website I wondered if this TJ was the Thomas James mentioned in the PughCompany bio on your website. Any additional information on TJ Pugh would be helpful. Steve MacDonald, Oakville
There appear to be at least 3 copies of this book out there. One is held by the National Postal Museum (a part of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.), and one is held by the British Library. The British Library also has a microfilm copy. https://www.worldcat.org/title/all-about-postcards/oclc/13150098&referer=brief_results
Thanks Logan. Might just see what it would cost to get a copy!
I can’t find any secondary sources that give information about the Canadian Post Card Co. Primary sources suggest the company was active from at least 1911 through 1969.
I looked through City of Toronto directories from 1910 through 1969 (available online through the Toronto Public Library, https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/history-genealogy/lh-digital-city-directories.jsp). There was no listing in 1910.
From 1911-1917, the Canadian Post Card Co (D A Lynn) is listed at 568 Dundas. In 1918 it is listed at 1570 Dundas W. In 1920 D A Lynn is listed as Donald A Lynn and the rest of the listing remains unchanged (except for the phone number) through 1946.
In 1947 and 1948 the listing is “Canadian Post Card Co Ltd, Donald A Lynn pres, Elsie P Campbell sec-treas, post cards,” still at 1570 Dundas W.
Both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star report the death of Donald Alexander Lynn on March 14, 1948, noting that he was born in Barrie and founded the Canadian Post Card Co. “37 years ago.”
In 1949, the directory listing is “Canadian Post Card Co Ltd, John E Bramham Pres, David Collver vice-pres, Elsie P Campbell sec-treas,” same address.
In 1950, the listing is “Canadian Post Card Co Ltd, David Collver pres, Beatrice Vaughan sec-treas,” still the same address. The final listing available online is 1969 and is the same except Beatrice Vaughan has become Beatrice Collver in the interim.
The Toronto Star (but not the Globe) reports the death of David Collver on October 4, 1976.
That’s all I’ve been able to find.
Thanks Andrew. Great research. Will try to incorporate into our section on Canadian Postcard Publishers when time permits
Love the postcards, pastel of my husband and watercolor of inuit
Presume you have the card entitled ‘First House Built in Assiniboia, Canada’ in the list already? I have an unposted example here.
Only stumbled on this blog yesterday – read the whole thing in one sitting – excellent! Happy New Year from Canterbury in the UK.
Many thanks for your kind comments. The “First House” is indeed on our current list. No new postcards from this series have turned up in the past few years, suggesting that the 35 we know of might well constitute the entire set. (Andrew Cunningham)
My family own a tourist camp at Rice Lake Ontario and the year 2021 will mark it’s 100th anniversary. As a part of our celebrations I have been collecting postcards of Rice Lake and surrounding villages.(Harwood, Gore’s Landing, Bewdley, Keene, Hiawatha, Hastings and Roseneath) There were only 2 views of our camp ever produced that we know of. Our business was called The Old Homestead up until 2000 when my husband and I purchased it from my parents estate. It was at this time we attempted to incorporate, but soon learned the name had been incorporated by another business. As a result we incorporated under the name of “The Old Burrison Homestead Ltd.” after my father. Over the years there were only 2 views of the camp made into postcards that we know of. If you have any cards of the lake and area especially The Old Homestead Rice Lake, please contact me. Thanks for checking this out. Isobel.
actually there is 25 postcards to each set as each set has an introduction to it with a check list on the back. Ive found looking for info that the cards were made available just before Christmas 1941 employees could purchase 1 or a whole set or both sets. I have all 50.
these postcards were sent from Canadian Pacific to the Canadian army overseas in Great Britain in 1942 i have the envelope they were sent in
I can’t claim an exhaustive list but I can give you what I have if you want it. I currently have 16 numbered real photo cards although a couple seem to be from a different series. I have a notion that the Royal York used them at different times but all were likely promo cards that you get in any typical upper end hotel. Let me know if I can help.
Rigorously detailed, thoroughly referenced, what a gift to academics and researchers. Many thanks Mr. Elder.
Are these memograms monetarily valuable as vintage art pieces?
Many of us deltiologists regard the postcards in our collection as art. In addition to hand-drawn like the memograms, there are ones made of silk, birchbark, celluloid, ones that have moving parts, ones that were taken by photographic artists, and so on. Whether another might see them as ‘art’ is of course, ‘in the eye of the beholder’ as they say.
‘Artist Signed’ postcards are a topic in most postcard dealer boxes. Some early artists; Clapsaddle for example are highly valued. The excellent postcard website ‘metropostcard.com’ has a long list of collectible artist postcards. As postcards, I would say that the memograms are probably valued around $10.00 individually. As a complete set, they would be worth more. And then there’s the cost to frame them.
I have a 16 Photographic Views of Petawawa War Camp. They are of world war 1 time . The first picture is of Premier Borden,Lt-Gen.Sir Sam Hughes and H.R.H. Duke of Connaught. Published by The College Bookstore,Kingston on. There are 2/ 1 cent stamps affixed to envelope which is in poor condition,pictures are excellent shape.I was wondering if worth anything? I also have a post card that says Declaring The Poll, Pockington Lan 9.7.190?. There is no personal writing on card. The card says Slights, Photo, Pocklington,and the postage to says half-penny for inland,one penny foreign. Again worth if any?
We have an overview of valuation on our FAQs page here, Michael. Suggest that you give it a look. WWI postcards are a topic in a postcard dealers box and I suspect yours would be of interest to a collector of that topic. Because its an intact ‘booklet’ from your description, you might expect a multiple of the single card value of a Petawawa Camp postcard. The other postcard that you have seems to be of a British topic and in Canada, less interesting therefore.
I just recently came across a postcard of Heather Lodge in Muskoka with me in the picture and description. It was produced by the Canadian post card Company. 1954. Are there any archives of this company?
I have a postcard depicting 2 children in a plane labelled The Spirit of Childhood with lettering showing Calgary 1931. The plane is on the sidewalk in front of the children’s house; the children are my sister, then 7, and my brother,6. I recall my mother telling us of a man going around the neighbourhood looking for wil.lling clientele.
Thanks! It’s amazing how many people have these wonderful postcards tucked away at home. The thing I’ve yet to see is one of them that was actually sent through the mail!
I am looking for information on O.E. Co., Canada (Ontario Engraving Company). I have seen the listings you have done for other postcard publishers and wondered if there is info on this company and what they printed.
Thank you.
Pat
As found in a Google search that turned up the “Industrial Canada” Journal. Aug. 1908, seems they were a Hamilton, Ontario printer. Specialists in Illustrating, BurLDiNGS, Machinery, Stovks, by Half-Tone, Wood and Zinc. Permit us to quote you.
ONTARIO ENGRAVING COMPANY, Hamilton, Canada.
Our colleagues at the Golden Horseshoe Postcard Club may have some more information.
Good afternoon Pat;
I have been doing quite a bit of research on the Ontario Engraving Co. of Hamilton and have a lot of images and some information…. but not a lot of detail is available in the Hamilton Archives. The company went by more than one name and used various logos. I have numerous cards that they did of Hamilton and a couple from Port Dalhousie in the Niagara area. Their main business was illustrated engraving for businesses in the Hamilton area as well as several promotional books for the City of Hamilton. Their owner, Mr. McCullogh was the founder of the Canadian Club and far more information is known about that. Feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss the company some more.
Regards
Jon Soyka,President, Golden Horseshoe Post Card Club
Hamilton 905-388-5840
jon@soyka.ca
I have a Saint John NB card from the series numbered (24), again to the left of the caption, “Suspension Bridge, St. John, N.B.” It is postmarked 2 Feb 1906. In my opinion, the number on the cards can only be a card number within a series of, at least, fifty cards.
Yes, I agree. It seems to be a rather scarce series. I have nos. 6, 30 and 50 — keep looking for more but they don’t show up often. (Andrew Cunningham)
I wonder if the omission of punctuation has anything to do with the other popular from of communication from the period. Telegraph messages were usually charged for by the word and in some cases charge was made for punctuation as evidenced hence the use of “stop” for a period. Short communication such as used on postcards may have adopted a terse style related, not to cost, but to space available.
Yes that’s possible – an interesting idea. I suppose one would have to compare actual full-length letters from the period to see whether this tendency is in evidence there as well.
Further to the above I should have noted that the link to the BC map page takes one only to the general area. To look at the specific area under discussion search for “Mount Barrington” and then look south east to find a broad flood plain. You can then toggle back and forth between the topo map and the aerial photo of the area. Another topo map of the same area can be found at http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/dmf-viewer/?siteid=5628311639164388216 but IU was not able to find a way to zoom in on that version.
That’s odd. It may leave a cookie or something once you’ve looked at it once because, for me, it takes me to the area, with the locations being easily recognizable if you have the map I included in the article as reference.
Your observations as regards the method of trestle building are spot on. What is interesting is there were dedicated ore cars used to transport the spoil/soil to fill up the trestle and provide a firm base for the final road bed. On PEI this method was frequently used for small gullies and streams but in those cases the earth was loaded on to flatcars and the engine pulled a wooden plow along the length of the train shoving the earth off the cars on both sides. While you have the technology right I have a great deal of difficulty with the locational analysis. Mount Barrington and the Barrington River are north of the Stikine River near Telegraph Creek. How an engine (however small) and railcars were transported to the site is beyond imagining although there was service of small steamboats on the first 200 miles or so of the Stikine. Telegraph Creek was not even connected to another community by road until well into the 20th century. An earlier delivery of railway equipment would have been a noteworthy accomplishment. Examining the aerial photos of the area there appears to be no other evidence of any sort of rail line or improved corridor with which the supposed embankment would connect. The BC topographical map found at http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/dmf-viewer/?siteid=5628311639164388216 shows that the visible slash on the surface is located on level ground within the valley bottom or flood plain and no trestle or embankment would be necessary even if there was a rail line. A BC mines exploration report for the Mount Barrington area dated 1968 fails to mention any prior exploitation of mineral resources and notes only an abandoned trail accessible only by 4 wheel drive vehicles. If a track bed had existed in the area it is probable it would have been noted. Unfortunately your link to a “topographic map” brings up an aerial photo which does not contain the “Iron Road” notation you mention. Perhaps it is a wrong link? However the location could be a red herring and I think the key may be in the location name. While “Barrington” could possibly be interpreted from the photo I think there could be other locations beginning with “Ba??”. I don’t think there are enough letters to spell Barrington. Finally it seems beyond belief that there would be a photograph from back of beyond BC, which would be turned into a postcard sent from Chatham Ontario in 1911. While it was certainly common for postcards to be mailed some distance from the location pictured, the distance from, and remoteness of the suggested location make it extremely unlikely. I think a different name but one a little nearer Chatham would be more likely. Given that this was an period of railway expansion both in Ontario and in the development of transcontinental routes there should be a number of possibilities. Finally, the name may be a barrier to identification as it might have been a temporary one long lost or abandoned as a place name. Once the embankment was finished the site might no longer have warranted a name at all and the location may simply have had the moniker ” Mile 37 on the Upper Rubber Boot Branch Line.” However this is a fascinating exercise. The answer is out there somewhere.
The “Iron Road” label took me a little while to find again, but it’s at the Mapcarta link (in the article) if you switch the view to “Map” (the little blue-and-white flag icon in the upper left corner. The name “Iron Road” and the fact that the road is so straight are both at least somewhat suggestive of this having once been a bed for a railway. The map also shows what looks like a symbol for an embankment on either side of the Iron Road in exactly the spot in question, as well as showing a contour line that would suggest at least a mild elevation at the west end of the (hypothesized) embankment. If it is an embankment, it looks consistent with the size one might expect, given the image on the card.
Exactly why a trestle would be required at that exact spot was something that also seemed to me to be a weak spot in my otherwise airtight case (well, not quite airtight!). But that looks to me like an embankment symbol on the topo map, which is a lot more evidence than I expected to find a century later.
Anyway, thanks for the analysis. It could be somewhere else, for sure. Anything is possible – I’ve not been to Barrington River to check and it doesn’t seem from looking for photos on line that very many people have! It looks like the sort of spot that it would be wonderful to find oneself at but probably not so wonderful a place to have to try to get to.
Although postcards did tend to be posted in proximity to the scene depicted, there is no reason in principle that any card couldn’t have been mailed from anywhere – and one does sometimes see such mailings. All it would have taken in this case is for some guy working on this mine site to send a pile of them to his mom in Chatham and for her to grab one of them a couple years later when she was hunting around for a postcard to send a note to her friend in Pontiac. So that aspect of it I’m not so concerned about.
Thanks for your contribution to the mystery. We’ll see what the verdict of history turns out to be…
Hi Everyone,
Has anyone ever tried to track down what became of the original negatives and photographs for the Valentine and Sons images of Canada? I would assume that the ones showing eastern Canada would have ended up in Percy Black’s possession? Has anyone ever tried to research what happened to Percy Black’s collection after his company, Valentine Black, closed?
Hi Marc, Not that I’ve heard of but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone has tried this (or to do the same thing with the Edy family – I forget Edy’s first name – in Winnipeg). We’ll see if there are any responses. (Andrew Cunningham)
Hello everyone , My first thoughts when I saw the airplane is it was a photo of Amelia Earhart . I think the photo was taken of the two women , not the airplane . Emilia Earhart was in Callander Ont in April 1937 to see the Dionne quints . She supposedly drove from Toronto ,is this her hitching a ride back to T.O or the US . Could make sense why this picture was taken .Only my thoughts, I love a GOOD mystery .
I am surprised that your google search did not turn up Great Barrington in Massachusetts, USA.
Well now, that wouldn’t have done for the postcard since Gt. Barrington is on the “Housatonic” River (as I of course knew long before Googling it 8 seconds ago — as a former Bay Stater myself … ).
Andrew
Was wanting to know if a post card that my father in- law had of Prime Minster Winston Churchill is a collectors item? It is in excellent shape. How would I find out? There is no hand writing on the back. On the back it says Published by permission of the Prime Minster. by the Photochrom Co. Ltd. London & Tunbridge Wells.
Of course to a postcard collector just about any postcard has value! Even if it’s ‘new’, the stamps often appeal to beginning philatelists. We hear that seniors’ residences are using the views for cognitive therapy too. Often a way to see how others value a certain types of postcard is to look on Ebay. When I searched for ‘Photochrom Co. Ltd. London & Tunbridge Wells’, there are quite a few for sale from around $3.00 to under $10.00. As for Sir Winston, a postcard with his likeness also seems to sell in that range. Perhaps giving this postcard to some sort of history related organization would be a place for it? or a history teacher at a school.
Do you know the dates or history of “THE CANADIAN POST CARD CO. Ltd Toronto 3” ?
The Ontario Archives web site show it as c. 1910 to c 1950 – but it may be still operating under a different name.
My family(Miners’ Bay Lodge) purchased many cards from them over the years and one that shows the above listing was definitely ordered in 1967.
Thanks
Russ Wunker
Is there a general brief history of the CANADIAN POST CARD COMPANY LTD. TORONTO?
Thanks
Russ Wunker
Not that we know of, but perhaps someone reading this will have some information.
there are in fact U.S. examples as well. WECV is a christian radio station in Tennessee and the spirit one website points to the Yukon U.S. someone else posted another photo claiming it was Victoria BC??? just like children posing on ponies is ubiquitous so it seems was posing in tiny airplanes.
Hello I have 7 postcards from 1910 all have the copyright Canada by Canadian postcard Co Toronto. They have been in my family for many years and were given to my parents after a family friend passed away. The pictures on the front of the cards are all scenes of either giant rabbits/hares either being chased by men in cars or have been caught and being carried on a pole. A giant corn on the cob being on a wagon being pulled by 2 horses. giant potatoes also on a cart being pulled by horses and a man sitting on top of one. Huge watermelon being sawn into slices by 2 men. A house being lifted by large pumpkin and lastly 2 men in a boat fishing huge fish. I’m not able currently to take photos but was looking for some information on these on the back of some are a stamp on the reverse which says the office of divisional car foreman May 19th 1910 NORTH BAY Ont any help with any information would be great
Hi Benjamin,
Those are known as “exaggeration” postcards and were fairly popular around 1910. Exaggeration cards are recognized as a collecting area, especially by U.S. collectors (a little more than in Canada because they were all, or almost all, made in the U.S.).
Another visitor to our site was asking us about them a few years ago — he seemed to know about them and noted that the Canadian Postcard Co. series were “taken from images by William H. Martin from Ottawa, Kansas, USA. I believe these cards were first released in 1910 and continued for some time.” So in reality they were imported from the U.S. and imprinted by the Canadian Postcard Co. with Canadian town names or other information and sold here.
There are many varieties and they aren’t usually too expensive if you want to collect some more!
Congratulations. This is a very interesting and informative website. I am doing some research for the penitentiary museum here in Kingston, Ontario and wondered if anyone in your club might happen to have a postcard of ‘G Company’ of the 21st Battalion Overseas Regiment taken in Kingston on Nov. 21, 1914? Here is a low resolution scan of one as found on the 21st CEF website http://21stbattalion.ca/photosdg/g_company_1914.jpg
We need to locate a higher res version in an attempt to identify one of our fallen penitentiary officers who was in that regiment in WW 1. Apparently the original that was scanned for the website has been lost. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Hi Dave
My grandfather was in the 21st, I remember trips to Kingston to visit Alf Tugwood, a comrade of his. That would have been mid 70s and I think Alf was involved with the 21st association. Anyhow, I have some copies of the 21st magazine that I will dig out to see if anything for your quest. I looked for my grandfather in your scan but couldn’t see him but hard to tell. He was Thomas Scott. On a related note, my uncle was Peter Hennessy who wrote a history of Kingston pen. The big house.
Howdy, from May (Brown County), Texas, USA – I went to an Estate Auction this week (7/17/18)- a widow’s estate who lived in Brownwood, Texas – She had been a Baptist Missionary and died at 104 years of age. I bought a box of “junk”, mainly for a pretty antique bowl I wanted. However, it came with a bunch of old postcards. Some were written on and some have never been used. I would like to mail these to your Club with the hopes that someone there will be able to organize and keep these old post cards – some are really old – some may be good for your auctions/fundraiser. I have done some searching online and I don’t know of any Post Card Collectors here in Texas – there might be some, but they don’t pop up, so I’m sending these your way – some may be valuable — I don’t know, but I’d rather see someone benefit or enjoy these cards rather than just throw them away. Thank you for helping to keep the memory of old times, historical buildings and old places alive thru these post cards. With Kindest Regards, Valerie Kelton, May, TX
Thanks for the offer, Valerie, but if the subject matter of the postcards is American they are really better to stay in the USA. Here is a list of postcard clubs in the USA and other. I suggest that you connect with some of these which are representative of the subject matter. If the cards are Canadian, by all means we will find them a home. Our mailing address in on our ‘contact’ page.
Hello, I am looking for postcards of Quebec … of the following cities Beauharnois, Melocheville, St-Timothée, Valleyfield and all the maps of the photographer Élie Gendron..I pay $ 100 for Melocheville cards with black band signed Élie Gendron or E.G and $ 35 and up for Beauharnois cards by Élie Gendron or E.G..thanks you!
A really interesting observation. I went through just a couple categories and found the same thing, but many of my duplicates are “sky only” and “sky with clouds”. The clouds are clearly “painted” in – in one card the clouds look like they’ve been painted by Gaugin. Valentine has a ton of variations (and I just collect Toronto!) – I’ve counted 45 of them just on the face of cards – black and white, sepia etc. I’ve never counted the different backs of the cards, nor, until now, the clouds.
I think “geeky” and “deltiologist” are a bit redundant, don’t you?
It’s not just Valentine & Sons that have this variety of skyline change, but many other publishers do the same. I often thought it was perhaps due to the cost of the stencils. They were expensive to cut, as was the material used to make them and they would have different dye cutters producing the stencils, thus the difference. It would be more cost effective to have a variety of skylines to fit many types/style of cards.
I have 23 of the 24 original series set no. 2 “Representative Canadian Railway Type Post Cards. I am missing J.McGarvey freight conductor, toronto in the original packaging.
I would like to know the value of these.
You are probably referring to “The Canadian Pacific Railway Employee Sketches” by artist Kathleen Shackleton. In a recent Club auction we sold several at about $10. per postcard. To a railway enthusiast, a complete set might be worth a premium for the complete set.
Hello. I recently discovered an album full of old postcards. The problem is the album is one of those horrible ‘magnetic page’ albums so popular in the 1970s. Is there a safe way to remove the cards from the album as they are stuck very firmly? Thanks in Advance
What did we do before the internet?! This seems like a good solution – floss them off. Hope it works for you! goodlifeorganizing
What Carl said. In my PEI collection, there are often 3+ different skies for the same scene – I had presumed this artistic license was national in nature.
The shadow of the X shaped crossing sign in the centre foreground is partial in the upper image and more complete in the lower image, suggesting a subtly different cropping of the image as well.
Thanks! I hadn’t noticed that. The “cropping” might just be an artifact of how the sheets of cards were cut after printing. I’m not 100% sure, though.
It does sometimes seem that no two postcards, like no two snowflakes, are alike!
Hi Andrew,
Very common in the Maritime’s versions of Valentines cards.
In my Halifax collection, many identical scenes can have 3-4 different ‘skies.’
Interesting! I will have to look into this more closely.
I have a question about Rumsey cards I hope someone can answer. The back of their cards in your history is the one I am familiar with. Their business name is printed on the left side of the card and their reference number is found in the bottom right-hand corner of the card back.
I have found identical views in both colours as these views but without their name anywhere on the card and a completely different reference number in the stamp box.
Were these Rumsey cards? Were they purchased by someone else who printed them in this new way?
Ignore my previous post. I have found the answer. In one of their series, the one I call the “Private Postcard Series” there are cards with a “patriotic” stamp over. In the case of London, Ontario cards the stamp reads “We All Say London”.
https://londonpostcardsca.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/canadian-publisher-rumsey-co-toronto-on-checklist/
The post mentions “as well as several series of patriotic postcards”. Can you help with images or any information on any patriotic card by Rumsey? I note that none are listed in Mike Smith’s book.
An illustrated catalogue of Rumsey & Co. cards with P.E.I. images can be found at
https://straitpost.wordpress.com/publisher-lists/rumsey-co-ltd-p-e-i-cards/
I just checked my collection and it turns out that I also have no (6) which is “Highland View Hospital, Amherst, N.S.”, so it appears that there was a series of at least 50 cards in this style. (Andrew)
Perhaps not so rare after all. I have a series of PEI cards published by P.D. Ayer of Moncton, all of which have the Private Mailing Card label. I will send a scan directly to you as it is not clear how images can be appended to REPLYS.
Thanks — We’ve posted the images you sent at the end of the post. Very interesting!
I just spotted another Black Printing card with the coloured back – “Cape Tormentine Breakwater” from a private collection on-line
http://www.peipostcards.ca/58.html
This time there is no number on the front.
I am interested in the “(50)” to the left of the title on the card. If this is a card number it suggests that Black Printing had an extensive series of cards at this early date. On the other hand the number may have some other meaning such as the size of the press run. Any collectors of Black Printing who could shed some light on the matter?
I would like to solicit the assistance of any members with Rumsey or P.E.I. collections. I am compiling a catalogue of early (pre WWI)Rumsey cards of P.E.I. and have identified 25-30 cards. Gaps in the known series suggest there may upwards of 20 additional cards. The Rumsey cards have number in the stamp box and there appear to be there are two main series of P.E.I. cards in the form 253?? and 480?? My current problem is that I have four cards where the number is unreadable owing to a stamp on the card. If anyone has unstamped copies of any of the following Rumsey cards I would appreciate learning what the number may be:
Charlottetown Harbour P.E. Island
Market Square, Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Queen Street, Charlottetown, P.E.I. [monotone]
Birds Eye View from the Post Office, Summerside, P.E.I.
With regard to the latter card there are actually two cards with the identical title – the one I am seeking information about is not card #48028. My guess is it is probably either 48027 of 48029.
It is my intention to add the Rumsey information to my on-line illustrated catalogue of P.E.I cards found at https://straitpost.wordpress.com/publisher-lists/
I have found a card by the International Stationery Co. of Picton that’s in colour – looks like water colour but it’s original to the card. This is the first ISC card I’ve ever seen that’s colour, at least for Toronto. Do any of you have ISCs in colour?
Interesting. We’ll see if anyone out there has other International Stationery cards of this kind.
Byron Harmon Photographer and Postcard Publisher published Postcards overprinted on Enida Olives cards as well as having Enida Olive publish cards with his name only but using clearly the Enida Olive format. I have seen at least 52 cards in my Byron Harmon Collection.
I am working on a book to illustrate all the Byron Harmon Cards. I have about 325 pages so far. I have just scanned another 800 cards not in my collection.
I have also found one in my mother in laws photos and thought I would research where it came from. It is a 1934 Vancouver Spirit of Childhood postcard and the background is a bit different than the others that I have seen posted so it does seem to back up the idea that the prop was moved around from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Thanks for starting this post, it made it easy for me to find out a bit about the stories and photos that I am putting into a book I am making of her memories.
Mr. Rumsey was the manager of W. F. Mcgregor of leather postcard fame in Toronto according to Might’s 1908 Toronto Directory. When Mcgregor went out of business in 1908 along with the failure of MacFarlane, Herr Rumsey appears on the scene as a publisher. It is notable that Bill Rumsey lived at 1528 Queen W in Toronto, the address of his postcard company.
Re: Gold frame postcards by Toronto publishers
MacFarlane was first out of the block in early 1908 [see his ad in the Bookseller & Stationer], the others followed later in 1908 and continued into 1909.
MacFarlane may seem to be late to the game because of fewer samples, but keep in mind that his company went under in late 1908, hence seemingly fewer cards from him.
I twigged to your article while researching something else, and this hit came up.
I look forward to getting the issue – hopefully soon. CardTalk has come a long way in 30 years since I first joined the Club and started getting it. Hopefully,many more years ahead for the Club and Newsletter.
I can tell you,as I live in the province,that Saskatchewan no longer wants to be known strictly as a “Wheat Province”. Oil production began in the late 1940s and we are on our way at taking the industry away from Alberta! Mining for Potash,which began in the early 1960s is also a huge business operation here. Just over half the population of Saskatchewan live in Saskatoon and Regina (and Moose Jaw -which is close-by to Regina)now so there’s probably many who don’t even know what living on a farm or even a small town is like. Collect those postcards of combine farming from the 1970s & 1980s because someday THEY will be the antique collectibles !
“dead one” is an Edwardian slang phrase meaning
“A dull, ineffective person; dull tool (1904+)” according to
The Dictionary of American Slang. I have a small collection of postcards from the same era that all use the phrase, they are all wonderfully strange.
Great article. Thank you. Of particular interest to me was figure 4.- as this house was owned by by my uncle prior to its purchase by the Unitarian Church.
I am wondering if anyone is doing work on Pugh Manufacturing? The company seems to have been very busy. For Prince Edward Island alone I have identified more than 60 pre-WW1 cards and the numbering sequence suggests there are at least 75 with a high probability of a lot more. If anyone can help interpret the numbering sequence, usually in the format XXX-XX I would be most appreciative. There doesn’t seem to be a specific number for a province or a city – I have several sequences for Charlottetown for example. I have just posted a revised illustrated catalogue of the P.E.I. cards that I am aware of at
https://straitpost.wordpress.com/publisher-lists/pugh-postcards-of-prince-edward-island/
Of you can simple search for “Straitpost” and drill down from there. I would be interested in learning of additional PEI Pugh series or the titles of the missing cards in the listing.
Thanks for your question, Harry. We will see if anyone is doing work on Pugh Manufacturing beyond the limited information in our publisher biography. The first three digits in the numbering series would likely have represented a specific “order” from a retailer or wholesaler in PEI. If there were repeated orders, there would presumably have been various numeric designations that wouldn’t be consecutive because other non-PEI orders would have been fulfilled in the meantime.
I’ve come to recognize that most publishers weren’t engaged in a grand, patriotic program of printing up postcards of the whole country, after which they hoped to sell what they’d produced. Rather, a company like Pugh was principally an order-taker or middleman that would receive submitted photos (e.g. of PEI scenes) and then send them off to the printers in Germany (typically) to have postcards made from them. Once received, the finished cards would be dispatched by Pugh to the local distributor or retailer for sale. Some companies were probably more active and actually did send photographers out to take photos — e.g. I’d expect Valentine & Sons mostly worked in that way. It’s all guesswork, of course. (Andrew Cunningham, Editor, Card Talk)
We have an old paper bag made by J.C.Wilson paper Co Montreal Showing an advert. For WM.Simpson & son ,dealer in Dry Goods at Ethel Ont. With a picture of a Steam train arriving at the store and a large group of people waiting on Simpson ‘s freight in black sketch . We would like to know what year this may have been produced and any other information. The paper bag was used as a back to a picture .
Good question. Paper bags were a major product line for J.C. Wilson in the 1890s but we will have to see whether anyone else reading this knows more about the exact span of time over which the company manufactured them (or whether anyone is familiar with the advertisement you describe). Ethel is in Grey County, west of Listowel.
In regards to the Halifax Explosion cards mentioned, there were at least 27 Novelty Mfg. cards produced and also at least 32 by Cox Bros. These #’s reflect the findings of Ken MacDonald that he published in his catalogue “Postcards of Halifax Regional Municipality (First Edition)”.
Also of note regarding the Novelty Mfg. cards that were copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood, they are some of the only known postcard photographs taken by prolific Halifax photographer Wallace R. MacAskill. He did sign a few real photo cards but only a very few. He is however suspected of having contributed greatly to Halifax’s body of postcard images, especially for MacLachlan Studios.
Thanks for the information, which is exactly what we were hoping to find. We’re more than open to a follow-up article if anyone out there wants to write one up! Otherwise I’ll just put a note in the next CT.
MacAskill’s story sounds similar to that of Winnipeg’s Lewis Foote, who is the iconic local photographer of the first half of the 20th century while having only a handful of lithographed and real photo postcards to his name (that we know of). It’s always a thrill to find one.
Andrew Cunningham
I have visited your page twice and enjoyed reading some of your detailed articles. While I no longer remember when I acquired my first vintage postcard, I did belong to the Vancouver and Saint John, N.B. clubs for a time in the mid-1980s. Currently I web-publish THE LOST VALLEY BLOG which explores the history of Saint John, New Brunswick [290 articles so far]. Frequently I employ cards as illustrations as they are often the only evidence of vanished streetscapes, industries, landmarks etc.
The current article “A Penny Worth of History” (May 8, 2017) describes Bruce ERB, an accountant who was a very serious philatelist, and who took his postcard exchanges very seriously. I published a sampling from an exchange he did with an advanced collector in Portugal from 1914-15, and I feel certain other knowledgeable postcard historians will have encountered Erb’s mailings. If any of you can add to the story I would be happy to append your remarks to the article. Googling “The Lost Valley Blog” will be sufficient to find my web publication.
Ron Jack in B.C.
The second instalment of the article is now web-published.
It is entitled “ISAAC ERB – The Postcard King”, and I do feel that
with these two articles I have broken new ground. There is certainly more to
discover. Our work is collaborative as well as cumulative, which is why I
invite comments from card experts in your Club. It would help to learn, for
instance, the purchase prices or contractual arrangement between firms
like Valentine and Sons, and Canadian photographers.
Again, the articles are easily found by Googling THE LOST VALLEY BLOG
Cheers,
Ron Jack, Blog Author and Publisher.
Thanks, Ron.
The blog is very interesting. There is definitely a lot there that would interest postcard collectors. I have the thick Saint John card with the door and accordion-style fold out images that you mention in your post 291. It’s an example of a Warwick Bros. & Rutter “Series 59” card (according to the numbering in the WB&R guide book). Those cards appear to have been produced by the Rotograph Co. of New York (and marketed by Warwick Bros. in Canada). There are eight known Canadian cards of this type, of which three are from New Brunswick – Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton.
I haven’t heard anything about purchase prices or contractual arrangements, although I would expect that some of that information is out there somewhere — perhaps you will receive a response as a result of this posting. If you’re able to attribute common Valentine & Sons or other postcard images to Erb or anyone else, please keep us informed.
You might want to give some thought to joining our club so you can get our magazine 3x per year — we have members from nearly every province so it by no means just a Toronto thing.
Andrew Cunningham
Inspired by the recent publication on the TPC site of very useful and interesting histories of smaller postcard publishers I have added a number of pages to my StraitPost site to include capsule histories and checklists of several P.E.I. publishers (although retailers or distributors may be the more accurate term). These pages include histories of several small firms whose name appears as publishers on P.E.I. cards as well as illustrated checklists for those firms and for P.E.I. cards from national publishers such as Pugh and Warwick Bros. & Rutter. The pages can be found at https://straitpost.wordpress.com/publisher-lists/
Both the histories and lists are works in progress and I am interested in any information which can correct errors or add to the completeness of the records. The companies included to date are: R.F. Maddigan, Taylor’s Book Store, Pugh Manufacturing, and Warwick Bros. and Rutter with work continuing on the Charlottetown firms Haszard and Moore, and Carter and Company
PS – On the prairies, there were grain elevators in the majority of villages and towns, so even the smallest place will usually have BEVs taken from an impressive height.
Hi! Sorry for any confusion. It is a bird’s eye view. The story is that I discovered the newspaper clipping, which mentioned 4 bird’s eye views (BEVs) in the series. I have most of the cards myself, including the other 3 BEVs, but there are some that I know only as titles on Wayne and Philip’s master list. When I saw that the clipping referred to a BEV from Calgary, I assumed that it must be an entirely new card because there wasn’t anything on the list entitled “Bird’s eye view of Calgary” or anything similar (the other 3 BEVs do have such titles). But now that I’ve actually seen the above card “in the flesh”, I realize that it is the BEV in question. I just didn’t figure that out on the basis of the title alone – I think I assumed it would be a picture of some cattle at a market. So — the moral of the somewhat uninteresting story — the “Calgary BEV” referred to in the clipping isn’t the elusive Card #36 at all. It was just one of the ones on the list of 35 that I hadn’t seen.
Great to see more information about the Canadian Postcard Publisher histories. There are probably scores, if not hundreds of local, regional and national publishers out there and additional information about them is most welcome. Lots of confusion still about differences between publishers and printers and in some sources the terms seem to be used interchangeably.
I am curious as to why this would not be classified as a “bird’s eye view”. I am not familiar with Calgary at the time but the photo seems to be from a high vantage point. What buildings would have been in the City at the time which would have the height to give this view? Given the aerial technology at the time I suspect that most birds eye views were from steeples, towers or high vantage points. If so, how is this different?
I just found a pic of my father and his brother, in Vancouver around 1930, in one of these planes. My mother (age 90 and a wealth of info), said a man hauled the plane around neighbourhoods taking pics of kids and of course charging the parents for prints. It is a great photo and I am happy to have found it and to have read more about the plane on this post! The boys are maybe age 8 and 6. My mother’s sister remembers a horse, but never a plane.
Thanks, to you and your mom and aunt, for the direct memories of the way these postcards were made. That confirms what we had guessed must have been the case. Few kids in the 1930s (even today) wouldn’t have wanted to climb into in one of these planes, so the business had potential!
Nicely done, I am one of the lucky ones that has collected these cards over the years, me and my family worked for the hotel company back in the day, and my father use to work with some of the employees that were on some of the cards.
Great stuff, thank you.
Mario TPC member
I have a postcard of mom and aunt in the 1934 vancouver plane as well as an earlier postcard without a year but say “Miss Vancouver” and “Spirit of Youth” same plane. Just wondering what year this one might be
Not really sure — it would be very likely to have come from the1930-1934 period, but it’s hard to say for certain. Can you send an image? (I didn’t see one with your note).
Photographers would go door to door, often with a prop, maybe a pony, but in this case, an airplane. Dress up the kids, put them in the plane, out front of the house – a postcard and prints or whatever for a precious depression dollar. This is my educated guess as to what we are seeing.
I’m sure some company in western Canada had a few planes made up and sent out their photographers to canvas the suburban neighbourhoods for a few years until the novelty wore off.
This is actually pretty cool. What kid in the 30s wouldn’t want a picture in an airplane like that?
Maybe the kids out west weren’t as impressed with ponies, but I remember them coming around here in Ontario. Not to mention, an airplane won’t sh*t on your lawn!
Yes, that makes a lot of sense — I’m quite certain you must be correct. It explains why they were always out on the sidewalk, which seemed too improbable to be coincidence. It also explains why the scenes have the air of an “event”, which might not have been the case if the kids were playing in a plane they played in every day. Thanks for your reply!
We were in touch with the aviation history society about this, and while one of their members had a couple of additional examples, he hadn’t researched it much further. However, he did point out that it wouldn’t have been uncommon for plans for home-made “planes” to be found in widely-read woodworking and home craftsman magazines. However, that still doesn’t quite account for the concentration of these images in, and (to my knowledge thus far) only in, western Canada. Perhaps more will come of it as more people see the blog post. (It isn’t exactly common to find photo postcards of 1930s-era children playing with toys or models — the fact that there are so many showing this exact item suggests that there is more to the story and that the creation of such images was being encouraged by someone for some unknown reason). — Andrew
Hi Andrew: The unknown city in the RPPC (“which city is this?”) is Guelph. The PC is a popular shot of the 1908 Old Home Week here.
Thanks for your help, Cameron. I’d since seen a reference to the image and its origin — on your blog? — but hadn’t yet updated the post. Guelph it is! — Andrew
I am a view Pioneer post card and folder collector. 1) Does anyone have any info or images of a Wirths Folder (1898) made of a Canadian City? Wirths Folders were made in the USA (1898-1903) and a 1956 book says that some Canadian examples exist.
2) any info on which Canadian (Toronto?)printer printed the Epworth or Victorian Expo Postcards of 1897? Thanks
Hello,
My late father … was born in Toronto in 1917. Among his papers is a postcard, made in Canada, where the picture is a black and white photo of a young boy, about 4 years old. He certainly resembles my father as a boy, but nothing is printed on the postcard that it is my father. Was it a practice in those days to have a postcard made of one’s children? Or perhaps my grandparents were struck by the picture’s likeness to their little son. Is there a website where I could search postcards of children? Can you help? Thank you.
Hi Lorraine. Thanks for the question. It was indeed a common practice to have postcards made in this way. Most photography studios offered postcard prints and there would also be itinerant photographers who would produce “real photo” portrait postcards at fairs or at the beach or anywhere that people congregated. Countless millions of postcards of this type would have been produced worldwide between 1900 and about 1930, after which time the practice became rarer as people increasingly tended to take their own family photos rather than rely on professional photographers. If the image on the postcard looks like your father as a boy, it very probably is just that.
Hi,
I just saw on internet a photo from 1910 from Canadian Post Card Co., Toronto.
It is photo of harvesting corn. Corn size of 6 feet and diameter of around 2 feet. It is a photo of a Tartarian people. Do you have any tip how to find more of those photos.
We call this type of postcard an ‘exaggeration’. There are many different views with the common element a very large subject that otherwise would not be so big. If you look at internet postcard sellers, EBay for example, you may find more that appeal to you. They may or may not have ‘Tartarians’ in the view.
I’m not sure about smoking but the PC may have something to do with negative reactions to the adoption of cars. That would explain why the two dead people are motoring, at a time when it was still reserved largely for the well-to-do. See http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/murder-machines/
I am looking to buy a postcard of St Joseph’s hospital in downtown Toronto. I was born there in 1955. Also any photos of Old Toronto, Zorra St in particular. Thank you so much.
Regarding the comment above from David F. Rhodes. My Great Grandmother was Nellie Murphy, who married George R. Warwick, of Toronto, (my Great Grandfather), whom I remember. I would like to find out your lineage with Denis Murphy. To anyone else who reads this, I would like to learn more about the Warwick family. Also any info or old ephemera on William Warwick, and Warwick Bros. & Rutter. Thanks.
IN REGARDS TO MYSTERY POSTCARD #1, I BELIEVE THE AIRCRAFT IS PRE-1938, NC DENOTES AMERICAN COMMERCIAL REGISTRATION. IT IS POSSIBLY A MAIL PLANE FROM A U.S. CITY, MAYBE A FIRST FLIGHT FROM ? TO SUDBURY. I’LL CHECK FURTHER AS TO FIRST FKIGHT DELIVERIES TO SUDBURY FROM AMERICA IN THE 1930s THEREABOUTS. DAVE H.
Is there a checklist for Canadian Post Card Company’s real photo exaggerated postcards taken from images by William H. Martin from Ottawa, Kansas, USA. I believe these cards were first released in 1910 and continued for some time. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
George Schnitzer Jr.
Just wondering how many J.Ed.Terryberry postcards there are? I have two cards and his own personal photo album witch I inherited all photos of Toronto and the Muskoka’s dated back to the early 1880’s just wondering if some of the photos could be real photo cards if any one knows please let me know thanks and have a wonderful day Geoff
Does anyone know where I can find an archive of postcards produced by Constable Picture Postcards of Canada? My great grand father is said to be featured on one around 1902. He won the world Ploughing Championship. Thank you.
Hi,
I am a recent member of the club and most recently attended my first Post Card Show at the Japanese Cultural Center. I had a great time, and came out with a lot of cards for my collection, new contacts, some great stories and stiff neck !
I collect Toronto RPPC, Toronto Photographs and ephemera pre 1960. However I am also looking for help in locating post cards produced in Romania from 1960-1980 by a photographer by the name of Tibor Lowy.
If anyone knows of collectors of Romanian post cards from this time period, please email me at victor78@sympatico.ca
I look forward to meeting fellow members at the upcoming meeting in April.
All the best,
Victor
I was curious as to whether Arthur Rutter’s son Guy joined the firm and if he is the same Guy Rutter who was an illustrator for Wilson P MacDonald.
I have recently been collecting postcards to do with Weston, Ontario for the benefit of the Weston Historical Society. I’m aware of Weston postcards at least as early as 1904 and as late as 1966. Many of these postcards appear to be parts of sets. In some instances the sets appear to be local, and in other instances the Weston postcards seem to be part of a broader set. Does anyone know how many sets of Weston postcards were produced?
Collecting and doing research on postcards produced by the Winnipeg Photo Company of Napinka. Can anyone help me out?
I would like to know how collectors catalogue post cards ? And what the best method for storing post cards is.
As I have some very old cards is there is a way to value the collection? Or is it a market drive force for value ?
As I am completely new to this subject any help and advice would be useful.
Good questions! Where to start. Probably the quickest way to learn is to connect with other collectors through a postcard club or postcard show. We list Canadian clubs on the ‘connections’ pages of this web-site and there is a show calendar page too.
As for storage, most of us keep our postcards in binders in archival binder pages with 4 to a page so that both the view side and the stamp side can be seen. You can get (with difficulty in Canada) archival quality plastic as well as regular plastic sleeves in various configurations. See the FAQ page for sources of these supplies. Another method is in a shoe-box or similar, or boxes such as the dealers use. This has the disadvantage of not being acid free storage and the postcard edges may be damaged by flipping through them to find a particular one.
The cataloging question has as many answers as there collectors, I suspect. Some just have a razor sharp memory. Filing by roughly the geography of the street/building is common. A larger collection might warrant a detailed Excel list with the card’s title, publisher, a general description of the view/subject for example. Dealers keep their inventory by country/province (state)/county/ town or topic (animals, Easter, bridges etc.) Some collectors collect a series for which the manufacturer/publishers numbers on the cards is the basis of their system.
As to valuations, look at our FAQ page for our insights. Yes, it’s market driven to some extent. The card has to find a collector who wants it and who wants to pay for it. A collector may pass on a $2.00 card that doesn’t speak to them but will jump on something special that’s $20.00 or more. The condition of the card affects the price as does its scarcity. Some like the time stamp of the cancellation, others prefer a pristine item. On the other hand, postal history buffs often look for unusual postmarks and stamps on old postcards. In the world of deltiology, the ‘real photo’ postcard of a known subject is the most prized. Modern ‘chromes’ are inexpensive today but 50 years from now may be highly collectible because fewer seem to be kept. And of course, as with all vintage items, the value to a collector is what they feel it’s worth as an addition to their collection.
Hi!
I am also trying to date a postcard showing a monument in Québec City, which was manufactured by The Post Card & Greeting Card Co. Ltd of Toronto. I know my postcard has been published after 1908, but any information about the company’s dates of activity whould be appreciated!
Thanks 🙂
I am looking for old and new postcards of the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu region which includes: St. John, Iberville, St-Luc, L’Acadie, St-Blaise, St-Paul-de-l’île-aux-Noix, Lacolle, Noyan and Napierville. If you have any, please get in touch.
simonneboudreau@hotmail.com
I have a small collection of the Northern Navigation sailor boy cards
and wonder if there is a listing of known cards in this series.
Thanks,
Bruce
Hi! I’ve just discovered your discussion thread. I too think I’m a descendant of Joseph Warwick, the founder, through my maternal grandmother, Beatrice Warwick, and am keen to research further. All web info (inc “Rootsweb” chat too) has been most useful in trying to sort out mass of Warwicks in Montreal & Quebec but I’m still confused! Would love to hear more from you (esp Joan Rooney, Wendy and Janet Wilford) and swop what I know, if it will help.Many thanks for your input so far.
Hello
I’m trying to get an unused colour postcard of “Le Parc des Champs de Bataille” (Battlefield Park, Quebec) published by Les editions Lumen, no. C.P. 48031. I’m in England so any help to point me in the right direction would be much appreciated!
Many thanks!
My Great Grandfather, Denis Murphy, had a daughter named Nellie who married George R. Warwick of Toronto. I would love to know if they had children and any current relatives.
I am looking for a copy of the Ridgetown Golf Club postcard, probably from the 1930’s. It shows a man putting and some women golfers. In the backgound is the clubhouse.
I’m looking for a postcard of Malvern (Scarborough) Ontario. The photo is of the intersection of Sheppard Avenue and Markham Road. It looks like a tiny little country lane. On the left of the photo is the Cowan’s Store and on the right is the Calendar’s Hotel / Standard Bank (this was once my family’s home). If someone could help me locate this card I would be grateful and I would be prepared to pay good money for one. A few photos of the house can be found here –> http://www.flickr.com/photos/sew_luvli/sets/72157604496979128/ The most distinctive feature of the house is the cross and circle medallion which sits just below the peak of the roof on the North side of the house.
If you have one of these cards for sale please email me at kebusato@thursdayschild.ca
Hello!
Can you call to mind any articles that have passed by your desk over the years that might include details of the lives of Commercial Travelling Salesmen who worked for Wm. Warwick & Son?
I see from a series of Toronto City Directories that my Great Grandfather was employed as a “Traveller” for Wm. Warwick through the 1880s and early 1890s. (He seem to have switched to Copp Clark Publishing by the turn of the Century.) I know that “the family story” is that he traveled great distances and was away for extended periods of time. I am curious about the area (distances) that he may have covered and what kind of routine or frequency would be involved in covering such a market?
Thank you so much for any leads, insights, consideration you can offer!
Gillian Fosdick
George Charles Warwick
Born: Sept 25th, 1894
Enlisted in the Canadian Field Artillery
Charles Ernest Warwick & Gertrude Emily Warwick (parents)
died April 9, 1918 (battle of vimy ridge)
Hello,
I am looking for a postcard and info therof,published by Warwick Bro’s & Rutter Publishing Limited, Toronto, entitled ” General View Stellarton N.S.” …published for Cameron’s Drug Store (Medical Hall) 243 … Does anyone have information on this since I am the present owner of the drug store but have never in my search came across the name Cameron ??
Thanks,
Kevin
I am studying Shell Oil Co emblem ‘Scallop’ on postcards and covers (both sides) any country any era including ex Canada. Has any one any availability or information especially cards I believe C.1937/8 from countries outside Canada to Canadian destinations I gather these organised by Shell Co, Canada?
Hi Joan
My maternal grandmother is descended from this line of Warwicks who had a foundry in Leeds (Joseph Warwick & Co) before emigrating to Canada.
I am also researching the Warwick family, my principal interest is Joseph Warwick ( born Montreal 1821) as I am a direct descendant.
I’d be interested in information from anyone collecting “Warwick” postcards
I am researching the family of this William Warwick, and have learned that his parents were William Warwick, Sr. and Alice Chisholm who married at Christ Church Anglican, Montreal in 1836. I have more info on this Warwick family from Leeds,Yorkshire, who first started an Iron foundry in Montreal in 1817.
Hi . I am looking for any postcards or paper from Drumbo ontario and area. This is in oxford county ontario.Other towns im interested in this area are Princeton , Plattsville, Wolverton, Washington, Richwood, Bright, Innerkip,Gobals. Thanks
Years ago, I used to be an avid collector, and a member of the TPC. On the occassion of the 10th Anniversary of the Toronto Post Card Club in 1977 I produced a video dedicated to the activities of our club. Some of you may have a copy of this CD.
I want to invite you to view it on YouTube, where is appears under the heading The Toronto Post Card Club, 10th Anniversary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkxbSuWAmPQ&feature=related
There are 6 segments posted there, and you will see most of our old club founding members there. I am releasing it in commemoration of our past president Wilf Cowin.
Please come & reminisce.
Slava Tsvetkov
Upper Canada College, Toronto, Canada
My interest area is small, but as a former student, I am collecting memorabilia- history, school crest, postcards about the life and times of the college. I have a collection of postcards, but would like to know more about them, and learn if I am missing any. I would appreciate any help and assistance anyone is willing to provide. Sincerely.. Stephen Burkart
I am looking for a specific postcard: a mint (unused) 1932? THE CANADA SEPIA SCENES #354 – Street Scene, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I would very much appreciate it if you could direct me to someone who has the card, or can tell me where I may find one. I can be reached at: brianmoir at telus.net Thanks!