Belgrade Boy, Circa 1910’s

Old photo, white border. Circa 1910’s. Belgrade,Yugoslavia.

Price:  $5.00          Size:  About 2 and 1/2 x 3 and 3/8″

Blonde tousled hair, a boy of about ten years old, has a nice smile for the camera on a sunny day…..The alternate name for this post is “Belgrade Boy With Balloon, Minus the Balloon.” 🙂

On the reverse is written,  “Mediterranean Belgarde.”  Not finding anything under Belgarde, we have to presume it’s a misspelling of Belgrade, now in Serbia, though at that time it would have been Yugoslavia. What was meant by “Mediterranean” is utterly unknown, as this city is nowhere near that body of water. Was it a section of Belgrade or a street name? We can’t find any reference.

As always, it’s nice to pick out details:  the pocket handkerchief in the boy’s sweater; we see that he carried a watch – there’s the chain (wonder what he carried in his other hand); the building across the street, probably a store, with only the last two letters (or so) of the company name showing – so, not really enough to get that tantalized feeling when you can almost read something; the automobile, we’ll skip the potential i.d. on this one – the image is a little blurry. And, of course, not a “detail” but that massive hunk of metal that was fashioned into a beautiful streetcar – imagine the weight of that thing….and our proximity to it – five or six steps and you can feel yourself grabbing the handrail and climbing aboard….

Royal Avenue, Belfast, Ireland

Royal Avenue Belfast Ireland pc1Royal Avenue Belfast Ireland pc2

Undivided back, unused postcard. Publisher:  The Valentine Company. Circa 1901.

Price:  $4.00

Turn of the century image in pale aqua and black of Royal Avenue in Belfast. This is a photo that has appeared in several incarnations. Sepia toned or black and white, and some with a little more of the original photo showing. You can see how this one here is a little faded out at the bottom. But in any case, it’s a lovely spot to lose ourselves in for a moment or two. Those are horse-drawn double decker trolleys in the photo, and we can estimate the date of the card as circa 1901 for two reasons:  A similar “Valentine’s Series” card was found online of a Dublin view dated 1901 by the sender, and Great Britain did not allow divided back postcards till 1902.