Vintage Postcards: Postcard Blog » Postcards

Swan Postcard Wanted for Dying Man

VintagePostcards — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 01:05:07 +0000

Postcard dealers get lots of strange requests, by both e’mail and telephone. Most revolve around people wanting us to buy their antique postcards sight unseen (Hello? They’re graphics…) or people wanting to sell unfortunate common postcards (such as views of Plymouth Rock) for large sums of money. Occasionally, someone asks if we have a certain precise vintage post card that they’re looking for. That never works out either.

However, we were touched by one recent request. The sender of the e’mail, who shall remain anonymous to preserve her privacy, wrote: “My mother-in-law is trying to locate a postcard from the early 1940s. It is in Asbury Park, NJ. She remembers the postcard. It is her mom, brother and sisters on the Swan Ride. (It is similar to the postcard you have on your site from Seaside [with a] swan ride). She has been searching the Internet without much luck.

“She does not have any photos of her siblings when they were that young. Her brother has prostate cancer and I think she is trying to find it for him to see. Please help!”

If you have a copy of the Asbury Park, New Jersey swan ride postcard from that amusement park, let us know and we’ll pass the information along. We’ve already told her how to set up an eBay search, how to post to “Want It Now!” at eBay and how to search Playle’s and Delcampe. Do you have the old postcard she’s looking for?

Learn more about Curteich linen postcards, which often featured amusement parks and other roadside Americana.

Canadian Patriotic Postcards

VintagePostcards — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:44:29 +0000

Canada has a long tradition of producing quite beautiful patriotic postcards. We thought we’d show you some examples. This one is a splendid c. 1906-1908 (postmark illegible) patriotic postcard of the hospital at Moncton, New Brunswick. It was published by Warwick & Rutter of Toronto, one of the better postcard publishers of the time. Notice the elegant surround with provincial flags, and the Union Jack.

Two Canadian patriotic postcard checklists have been published. The first, The Canadian Patriotic Post Card Handbook, 1904-1914, was authored by W. L. (Wally) Gutzman and published in 1984 by the British North America Philatelic Society. Long out of print, the book can still be found occasionally in the stores of online book sellers. It has many informational color plates and grades postcards by rarity factor although, of course, the prices are long out of date.

Michael J. Smith’s The Canadian Patriotic Postcard Checklist, 1898-1928 is replete with many more examples of patriotic postcards. Published in 2003, it’s also out of print. Both books are worth including in any postcard reference library.

A handsome, if fanciful, patriotic view of the North Bay (Ontario) City Hall is seen above, in which it appears improbably exalted to the level and grandeur of surrounding images of Niagara Falls, the prairies and their agricultural fertility, the Rocky Mountains and Parliament. High hopes abounded, and this exuberance was often reflected in patriotic postcards of the time.

See another Canadian patriotic postcard, or browse the world’s largest selection of postcard books.

Read another blog post about Canadian patriotic postcards.

A Moreland Motor Truck and Zerolene Postcard

VintagePostcards — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 21:53:35 +0000

Here’s a handsome and seldom-seen image which recently sold. It’s an unused c. 1915-1925 postcard of a Moreland Motor Truck Co. vehicle at East Lake Park in Los Angeles, California. Nicely detailed and with deep, rich colors, this vintage postcard shows a distillate 4-wheel truck marked as number 1609, with prominent advertising on the side for Zerolene, “the Standard Oil for motor cars.” (Zerolene was a product of the Standard Oil Co., now part of Chevron.) The reverse says that the truck operated “on No. 1 Engine Distillate at a saving in fuel cost, over gasoline, of more than 50 percent. Six different sizes from 1500 to 13000 pounds capacity.”

Developed in 1907 at Standard Oil’s Richmond, CA refinery, the lubricant Zerolene got its name because, according to the company, “the product flows freely at zero.”

The Moreland Co.’s founder, Matt Moreland, was one of the founding fathers of the modern long-haul trucking industry. Moreland trucks were only made in small numbers and sold primarily in 11 Western states. Mr. Moreland founded the company in Burbank in 1911, after working as an engineer for Winton and Durocar. While early Morelands used Continental and Hercules gas engines, later models had Waukesha gas engines and Cummins and Hercules diesels. Always an innovator, his early trucks were equipped with gasifiers, which allowed them to burn low-cost distillate fuel (similar to kerosene) such as Zerolene.

Published by Geo. Rice and Son of Los Angeles, this is a desirable petroliana, advertising or transportation collectible! See other examples of automobile postcards at our website.

Road trip! Road trip! Read about our visit to a West Virginia postcard dealer’s shop.