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Buffalo Bill Cody and the Wild West

VintagePostcards — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:45:39 +0000

A bit of the Wild West lives on in this scarce c. 1918 real-photo postcard of Louisa Cody, widow of Buffalo Bill Cody. Buffalo Bill, one of the most colorful entertainers of the Old West, was famous for his shows which featured cowboy themes. He died in 1917 of kidney failure; Mrs. Cody herself is elderly in this image. She died about three years after this photograph was taken. A pillow rests at her feet, and her chair is cushioned by a checkered blanket as she suns herself. The real scene stealer is Chief Red Wolf, an Oglala Sioux and American Indian scout who worked with Buffalo Bill. His gaze is piercing. From his elaborately beaded leggings to his feathered war bonnet, his appearance is imposing.

On the the reverse, the antique post card reads: “Compliments of Mrs. W. F. Cody. My Foster Mother and Chief Red Wolf, an old Indian Scout of Buffalo Bill’s. Borned [sic] on Pineridge, S. Decota [the Pine Ridge, South Dakota Indian reservation].” Along the bottom is written the date January 8, 1856. Was this Chief Red Wolf’s birth date, or that of Mrs. Cody? The location is given as Cody, Wyoming.

One of my favorite poems is about Buffalo Bill, and was written by e. e. cummings:

Buffalo Bill’s

defunct

who used to

ride a watersmooth-silver

stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

Jesus

he was a handsome man

and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

Read about a charming Victorian store, or see more native American post cards at our website. Unwind in the world’s largest postcard bookstore.

A Late Victorian Store in Stony Ridge, Ohio

VintagePostcards — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:17:16 +0000

This simple, yet charming c. 1901-1907 unused advertising postcard shows merchandise which was available in the store of Albert Swartz in Stony Ridge, OH. Baby buggies and “Express” wagons were available, and Swartz carried a variety of bicycles as well.

His shop also offered bicycle repairs and bicycle tires. He specialized in Gendron wheels, which were well-known wire wheels made in nearby Toledo, OH. The Gendron Co. pioneered pedal cars and made wheels for bicycles, tricycles, invalid chairs, go-cars, baby carriages, doll carriages, coaster wagons and toy wheelbarrows. Presumably, all of the wheels shown here in the Swartz advertisement were Gendron wheels. A deceptively simple Wood County post card, and a hard-to-find cycling collectible which was snapped up by an eager collector within days of its listing.

Whatever happened to the Swartz store? Is it still there, restored and operating as a trendy boutique? We wonder what became of it.

Read about a Victorian advertising trade card, or see more advertising post cards and trade cards at our website. Unwind in the world’s largest postcard bookstore.

Fanciful Fourth of July Postcards with Uncle Sam and Children

VintagePostcards — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:14:25 +0000

Happy Fourth of July to our readers! July Fourth, with its patriotic images of Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty, and the holiday’s association with fireworks, led to fanciful, festive postcards with splendid graphics at the turn of the 20th century. Above, we see a finely detailed and embossed 1911 Fourth of July post card showing a young girl surrounded by fireworks and firecrackers, as a cannon detonates next to her. The American flag waves patriotically in the background. Now, of course, we’d be horrified to see a child standing next to a detonating cannon.

Everyone would gasp in horror now at the thought of a young boy running with wild abandon while firing a pistol in the air, but Uncle Sam looks on approvingly as he holds firecrackers aloft while fireworks explode in the background. This unused vintage postcard dates to about 1907. Postcards depicting Uncle Sam are themselves highly collectible.

Read about little-known April Fool’s Day postcards, or see more Fourth of July post cards at our website. Visit the world’s largest postcard bookstore.

Happy April Fool’s Day from France

VintagePostcards — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:25:25 +0000

Happy April Fool’s Day! During the “golden era” of postcard collecting, from about 1901 to 1915, the French loved to send one another postcards celebrating this improbable holiday. April Fool’s Day postcards were quite fanciful and often featured fish, traditionally associated in France with memory improvement. This scarce c. 1915 to 1920s real-photo fantasy post card depicts a flying fish with airplane wings, who transports a young girl while holding a peppermint candy in his mouth.

(Thinking: Drugs? Who needs drugs, with an imagination like this?)

Read about a great Easter postcard, or see dozens of holiday post cards at our website. Visit the world’s largest postcard bookstore.

Easter Bunny Mother and Child, a Fantasy Holiday Postcard

VintagePostcards — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:25:39 +0000

With the Easter holiday fast approaching on April 12, we just had to share this charming new arrival with you. This c. 1907 fanciful Easter holiday postcard, embossed and gilded, depicts a mother rabbit in a red dress and her child rabbit holding up a sign that reads: “Be Sure and Have a Good Time.” Or, perhaps it’s a schoolmarm rabbit and her student. At any rate, it’s fun.

The antique postcard was published by an unknown postcard publisher in Germany, and is of the high quality — with careful attention to detail — often seen in early post cards published in that country. Happy Easter!

Read more about Easter postcards, or see more Easter post cards at our website. Visit the world’s largest postcard bookstore.

Bedford, Indiana Outsider Artist August Mack Revisited

VintagePostcards — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:48:06 +0000

We blogged last year about two unusual “outsider art,” or folk art, postcards from Bedford, Indiana which showed the dramatic c. 1940s work and religious visions of folk artist August Gustav Mack. His folk art display was six miles north of Bedford, on State Road 37 in Lawrence County, IN, but we didn’t know much else about this intriguing artist. Surprising new information has surfaced.

Reader David Seaney of Indianapolis, Indiana, who chronicles an amazing number of c. 1920s to 1960s illegal Midwestern casinos and speakeasies at his website, advises that Mack emigrated to America from West Prussia, Germany in 1891, when he was 12. He became a stonecutter in Lawrence County, Indiana, which is world famous for its limestone. Later, in 1942, Mack self-identified as a sculptor.

The alert Seaney also located an August 10, 1931 newspaper article from The Valparaiso Vidette Messenger which contains the story “ Raiders Find Old Time Saloon in a Hen House.” The article contains surprising information about some of Mr. Mack’ other, less-than-godly, activities. It seems that during Prohibition, he ran afoul of the law in Bedford. Mack was operating a speakeasy in a hen house on a farm one mile north of Oolitic, and was raided by [Lawrence County] Sheriff John Tyree and a posse. According to Tyree, one of several of Mack’s hen houses had been outfitted as an old-time saloon and was furnished with tables and chairs, a refrigerator, poker tables and slot machines. Mack was charged with violating prohibition laws and between 500 and 600 bottles of beer, mash and other liquor-making supplies were confiscated.

Reader Seaney also found an eight-year-old post by Sue Mack on the WoodCarvers Web, which reads: “Sometime in the 20s, 30s or 40s, August Mack carved from wood a serpent that is now in a museum. It is called the ‘Brazen Serpent’ and it coiled, hissed, and rattled like a real one. It was 21 feet long and weighed about 300 pounds. It had 362 ribs and over 4000 scales on its body. It had the appearance of a large diamondback rattlesnake. It works by the power of a small motor. We believe he carved it in Oolitic, Indiana which is south of Bloomington, Indiana on Highway 37, just north of Bedford, Indiana. We believe it is in a museum somewhere in the Carolinas or the vicinity. Has anyone seen it? He is an ancestor and we’re doing some family history. He also has carved a merry-go-round and animals until his death on July 26, 1947.”

Feel free to jump into this thread, if you have more information about folk artist Mack. Seaney says there are two other articles about Mack at The Bedford [Indiana] Times Mail website. A June 24, 1997 articles chronicles Mack’s life and works, while an August 4,2008 story is about the mechanical snake. Unfortunately, this is a pay site, and these articles were not accessed.

Read our original post about outsider artist August Mack or see our selection of roadside America postcards at our website. Or, visit the world’s largest postcard bookstore.

A Smiths Falls, Ontario Patriotic Postcard

VintagePostcards — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:53:41 +0000

Canadian patriotic postcards tend to be more localized and — in many instances — more imaginative and flamboyant than their American counterparts. This scarce unused and undivided-back c. 1901-1907 patriotic postcard offering greetings from Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada is an example of the small-town localization often seem in Canadian patriotics. This desirable Lanark County collectible is in excellent condition.

Two authoritative Canadian patriotic postcard checklists have been published While both are out of print, they can be found from time to time in online bookstores. W. L. (Wally) Gutzman’s The Canadian Patriotic Post Card Handbook, 1904-1914, was published by the British North America Philatelic Society in 1984, and contains many postcard images not seen in Michael J. Smith’s The Canadian Patriotic Postcard Checklist, 1898-1928, which was published in 2003. Both books are worth including in any postcard reference library.

Read another post about Canadian patriotic postcards, or see more patriotic postcards at our website. You can learn more about postcards at our popular reference page. We also offer the world’s largest selection of postcard books.

A Classic Lincoln Highway Postcard

VintagePostcards — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:10:10 +0000

When I was a child of about six, my father began traveling Route 40 and Route 30 on summer trips to see my grandparents. I was attracted to roadside postcards documenting where we stayed and what we saw, and this fondness for roadside Americana has continued throughout my life, as I obtained a master’s degree in historic preservation and became an architectural historian.

Here’s a classic example of a 1950s roadside Americana postcard. Its highly detailed graphics depict Crosser’s Amoco service station and roadside diner on the Lincoln Highway (Route 30) in Lisbon, Ohio. The gas station, in the Spanish Revival architectural style, actually dates to the 1920s or 1930s, when this style was popular. A bonus with this gas station collectible from Columbiana County is the roadside diner next to the gas station.

Read another post about roadside America postcards, or see more roadside postcards at our website. You can learn more about the Lincoln Highway in the roadside section of our popular reference page.

Unusual 1880s Dental Trade Card Advertising

VintagePostcards — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:03:19 +0000

Your dentist may be surprised to hear that the quest for white teeth is not new. Here’s some scarce subject matter and great graphics in this 1884 dental trade card advertising Hood’s Tooth Powder. The manufacturer, C. I. Hood of Lowell, Massachusetts, advertised that their product “whitens and beautifies the teeth, sweetens the breath and hardens the gums.”

The trade card has an attractive “trompe l’oeil” (three-dimensional) effect of a smiling woman emerging from a page of advertising. It’s stamped on the reverse from a pharmacist on Limestone St. in Springfield, Ohio. Measuring approximately 3 x 4”, this is a charming dentistry collectible in excellent condition, and would look great in a dentist’s office.

Read another post about trade cards, or see more advertising postcards at our website.

An Outsider Art Black Americana Postcard

VintagePostcards — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:06:25 +0000

For collectors of black Americana vintage postcards, it doesn’t get much better than this! Collectibles which depict every-day life in the black community are scarce, and this old black history postcard shows the proud owner of a 1952 Pontiac, which he has decorated in a folk art, or outsider art, manner. This great image was made in 1973 at a Gulf gas station in Houston, TX and is in near-mint condition. It has cross-appeal to the roadside America, or roadside Americana, collector and is also an interesting petroliana collectible.

Read another post about roadside America collectibles, or browse the selection of black Americana or gas station postcards at our website.