Kitties On Moving Day

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Non-postal card by artist Eugen Hartung. Publisher the Alfred Mainzer Co. Circa 1940s – 1950s.

Price:  $2.00 digital image only

The “kitty kids” are having a high time of it here while the “kitty movers” are looking understandably a bit beleaguered. There’s the mom in the window (trying unsuccessfully to contain one of her charges?) and maybe that’s the dad trying to help, but tripping with the stack of dishes. This is one of the many colorful and comical drawings by Swiss artist Eugen Hartung (1897-1973) commonly called “Mainzer Cats” referring to publisher Alfred Mainzer of New York. (They were first published in Zurich by Swiss publisher Max Kunzli and known as “Kunzli Cats”.) The majority of Hartung’s dressed animal drawings were kitty scenes which often included other animals, like mice, dogs and birds; many of the other animals were anthropomorphized like the kitties here, but some were not, depending upon what was needed to tell the story.

This card (possibly originally a postcard) was trimmed a little on both sides and pasted to fit in the card “frame” by someone. This cut off the artist’s heart-shaped logo that, on this one, would have appeared at the bottom left. It was given to a friend so is only up for display on this website but can be found for sale on other sites.

Sources:  http://mainzercats.com/

http://www.metropostcard.com/artistsh.html

http://aboutcards.blogspot.com/2012/09/mainzer-cat-postcards-and-eugen-hartung.html

1870s Girl

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Carte de visite of unknown girl. Photographer and location unknown. Circa 1870s. Size:  4 and 1/8 x 2 and 1/4″

Price:  15.00

Carte de visite of a beautiful and fashionable young girl, perhaps about age fourteen to sixteen. She wears a fitted jacket that has rather large buttons and a pleated v-neckline under a velvet collar. The jacket material has a vertical pattern running though it. I am not sure what type of material it is, perhaps cotton or possibly silk. (It almost has a silk moiré a.k.a. watered silk look.) Under the jacket or perhaps just in the v-neckline of the jacket we see what looks like a dark lace scarf or fichu type of article, attached or overlaid on a loose-fitting white collar. Just above the top jacket button appears an unknown something in white. Was this a flower or could it even have been a problem in the photographic process? (No offense to the photographer.) Besides the dangle-y earrings the girl wears a cross which hangs from a short bead-like necklace. Her hair is arranged flat on the top of her head, it seems to be adorned with a comb, while the sides are swept up to to give a little height, and her sausage curls are arranged behind her ears and fall just past shoulder length. As with all photos of people it is always interesting to see beyond our first impressions. What might strike as a bit of a sad look transforms beyond that one- dimensional impression when we notice her poise and loveliness.

There is nothing appearing on the back of the cardboard that the photo was mounted on, so the photographer is unknown, as is the exact date of the photo, but it’s estimated to be from the 1870s.

Greetings From Missouri

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Missouri  “Show Me State”   Capital:  Jefferson City.   Area:  69,674 sq. mi.   Population:  3,954,653.   Motto:  Salus Populi Suprema Lex Estro. The Welfare of the People Shall Be the Supreme Law.   Flower:  Hawthorne.   Bird:  Blue Bird.   Tree:  Dogwood.   24th State admitted to the Union.

That’s a mule proudly representing the state from his garland of hawthorn flowers. The Missouri mule was designated as the state animal in 1995. Mules were introduced in the 1820s in Missouri, popular with farmers because of their hardy nature, pulled covered wagons of pioneers moving west, and played an important role in transporting WWI and WWII troops and supplies.

Per a Wiki entry the population listed here was recorded for the year 1950, so this postcard is likely from the early 1950s.

Divided back, unused postcard. Publisher info:  Genuine Natural Color Made by Dexter Press, Inc., West Nyack, N. Y. Series or number 25086-B. Circa early 1950s.

Price:  $3.00

Sources:  http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Missouri/MissouriStateAnimal.html

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_Missouri%27s_population_in_1950

Looking For A Letter

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Hazy country scene in fall or winter showing some bare deciduous trees and the sunrise or sunset through the mist. This is from the pre-divided back era, so the sender wrote a short one line, and signed it. The front shows,  “I’m looking for a letter – Lilian”  The back is addressed to  “Miss Lucile Evans, Covington, Indiana.”  The postmark is hard to read. It looks like it was sent from Indiana, you can barely see the “IND.” The city name looks like it might end in “rsburg.” The date also is really hard to pick out – Jan for January but the year is too light to read. Approximate date is 1906 because of the divided back era beginning March 1st, 1907.

There is a Lucile Evans on the 1900 Federal Census taken in Covington, Troy Township, Fountain County, Indiana. She is about ten years old, born November 1889. Her parents are John and Emma Evans, and she has brother, Emerson, age four. All are born in Indiana. John Evans’ occupation is abstracter of titles. Nothing else is showing up in online records that would fit, so this is likely the right Lucile Evans, and she would have been about 16 when she’d received this postcard from Lilian.

Undivided back, used postcard. Postmarked in unknown city in Indiana, date January, year unknown, circa 1906.

Price:  $4.00

Source:  Year: 1900; Census Place: Troy, Fountain, Indiana; Roll: 370; Page: 14A; Enumeration District: 0073; FHL microfilm: 1240370. (Ancestry.com)

Greetings From Florida

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Greetings From Florida – “The Sunshine State”

Here’s a beauty of a state map postcard. Love that gator!

“Nickname – Sunshine State. 1957 Population – 3,897,414. Area in Sp. Miles – 58,666. Entered the Union, Mar. 3, 1845”

Divided back, unused. “Lusterchrome” Reg. U.S. Pat. Office. Publisher:  Tichnor Brothers, Inc. Boston 15, Mass. Series or number L-122. Circa 1957.

Price:  $4.00

May You Be As Happy…

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“May you be as happy yourself

As you’d like to see anybody else.”

 

This postcard shows a lovely vista of water and shore artistically draped by red flowers and with the above verse. This is the second posted for “The Lena Davis Postcard Collection.” Addressed to:  “Miss Lena Davis, Almena Kan.”  The sender wrote:

“Long Island. Sept. 2   Hello how you [?] am fine and dandy. got home all right had some bad luck while I was gone. I guess you have heard about it, to bad you didn’t have my thing[?] to come for ha, ha. well [we’ll?] come again. say I have gained one pound in 2 days – that is picking up [?]”

This is the third of three in the sort of “mini-look” at an unknown publisher (see the two previous posts) and E. Nash, a known postcard publisher but for whom not much is known. So, here you can see the Nash logo on the front – capital “N” in a triangle, and “Copyright E. Nash” next to the spiral design in the back header surrounding the “C” in Post Card. As previously mentioned, the same postcard header minus the Nash copyright appears on postcards with publisher or printer logo capital “A” or perhaps two capital “A”s inside a circle. The previous postcard submitted on this website is dated 1910 and this one’s dated 1913, so one might surmise that, sometime between the two dates, E. Nash bought out the person or company that was initially using this postcard header, or maybe just bought the rights to the design. I don’t know if there were any other publishers, besides the two in question, who also used this same header, but I haven’t seen any yet. More research needs to be done and more dates looked at on more postcards.

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked September 3, 1913 from Long Island, Kansas. Publisher:  E. Nash. Series or number G 10.

Price:  $6.00

Lemons And Pink Poppies

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Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Unable to read postmark location. Postmarked November 15, 1910. Publisher or printer unknown. Logo shows capital “A” or two capital “A”s inside a circle. Series or number 675 – 5.

Price:  $5.00

The sender wrote,  “Did you think I had forgotten you, well I havn’t but ain’t had time to write. we are all well hope you are the same. from cousin Sarah.”

Addressed to:  “Miss Lena Davis, Pomona Kans. c/o J. Johnson.”

I love this one because of the unusual combination on the front of lemons, and I believe those are poppies. Whoever the artist was certainly got it right, as far as those lemons, and their leaves and stems (from someone who has a lemon tree.) We don’t have poppies here at Laurel Cottage (though would like to) but they seem very well done, also.

This is the first one posted in the “Lena Davis Collection.” There will be many more to come. She is a cousin of our friend J. W. Carter, whom we’ve had the pleasure to get to know a little from his postcards to Lena. The Lena Davis cards will not be in date order, as I prefer to post the holiday cards around their proper date, plus wanted to get this one and the following post up as they pertain to publisher E. Nash, about whom not much is known, as of the date of these posts. And also, if you’re following this E. Nash “not much is known about” mystery then please see the prior post, as well.

So, this postcard was done by an unknown publisher or printer, whose logo appears on the back of the card at the bottom right, which is a capital “A” inside a circle, or two capital “A”s inside a circle, depending upon your point of view. The postcard header is very distinctive, (very cool) and the design around the “C” in Card may remind you of a spiral staircase. This header design appears in all the postcards that I’ve seen (so far) with the “A” in circle logo. Shortly after this we start seeing this header with “Copyright E. Nash” appearing to the left of the spiral design. So, perhaps Nash bought out the unknown publisher or printer that did this postcard. This one is dated 1910 and the following one I’ll post is dated 1913. This is just a theory. I don’t know if any other publishers used the spiral design, or the exact dates involved for these two guys (assuming they were men.) We’ll see what else comes along to clarify all of this in the future, and post something accordingly.

Birthday Wishes From Pauline To Goldie

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Divided back, embossed, unused with writing postcard. Series or number 609 – 7. Publisher or printer logo is 2 capital “A”s  – one larger than the other, in a circle. Circa 1910.

Price:  $4.00

Pretty colors on this one and nice lettering showing “Wishing You A Happy Birthday.” Yellow rose with buds on a light blue background with a very nice embossed border of white leaves. The back shows,  “From Pauline to Goldie.”

The very distinctive post card heading on the back – with the sort of spiral staircase design around the “C” is seen both with the publisher or printer logo that we have here – one or two “A”s inside a circle – and also seen on postcards by publisher E. Nash with the copyright symbol and “N” inside a triangle. On the Nash cards that I’ve seen using the spiral design, “Copyright E. Nash” is printed on the outside left of the spiral. The question is did Nash maybe buy out whoever was publishing or printing under the “A” in circle logo? I have a Nash one dated 1913 and an “A” in circle one dated 1910. These examples will be posted next.

Sincere Birthday Wishes

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Divided back, embossed, unused with writing postcard. Printed in Germany. Publisher:  Samson Brothers. Series 7073. Year dated by sender:  1914.

Price:  $7.00

Beautiful German-printed postcard showing “Sincere Birthday Wishes” with conch shell containing red roses and forget-me-nots, and they appear to be in process of washing up on shore. On the back of the card is written,  “To Mamma From Luella 1914.”

Reuben E. Lee Riverboat Restaurant

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Divided back, deckled edge, unused postcard. Published by Photo Art, 200 Neptune Ave., Encinitas, California 92024. Series or number 54226-C. Circa early 1970s.

Availability status:  SOLD

“Reuben E. Lee. Riverboat Restaurant. Harbor Island, San Diego. Overall Length 204′ – 8”     Width 55′     Overall Height  65′     Weight 1,000 Tons.   Owned by Far West Services, Inc. Operators of Snack Shops, Reuben’s, Coco’s, The Whaler, Wu Ben’s and Reuben E. Lee Riverboat. California, Arizona, Missouri, Hawaii.”

The Reuben E. Lee Riverboat Restaurant was built in 1969, and was a restaurant that was constructed on a barge and built to resemble a Mississippi Riverboat. For about 34 years it was a very popular destination for dining, birthdays, wedding parties and the like, but there were issues with water leakage and in 2003 it was closed down, being deemed structurally unsafe. In April of 2012 it was towed from it’s longtime location to a local shipyard in the San Diego Bay, and sank at the end of that year, due to it’s hull giving way. (How sad.) ….Well, even though the Reuben E. Lee never steamed up or down any waterways, it went the way of many a vessel, and maybe that is poetic, in a sentimental sort of way, for the restaurant that was built to look like a riverboat.

As to the date of this postcard, the cars in the photo are the major clue. Many appear to be mid-1960s models but the orange wagon (center) appears to be either a 1970 Opel Kadett Station Wagon or maybe a 1972 Opel 1900 Sport Wagon. Maybe the red-orange color was not available in both years? Any Opel experts out there, feel free to post your comments, please! Parked next to the Opel is what looks like a 1965 Dodge Charger (comments welcome, of course.)

Sources:  Fiorina, Steve. “Landmark floating restaurant Reuben E. Lee sinks at local shipyard”. ABC10 News. 11 Dec 2012. Web. Accessed 25 May 2014.

Blauer, Phil. “Restaurant plans afloat to replace sunken Reuben E. Lee”. CBS8.com. 31 Jan 2013, revised 1 Feb 2013. Web. Accessed 25 May 2014.

Hill, Taylor. “Harbor Island’s Reuben E. Lee Towed Away”. The Log, California’s Boating and Fishing News. 21 May 2012. Web. Accessed 25 May 2014