Two Cards that Look the Same

This is one of the aspects that I like about collecting the postcards. These two cards look like the same postcard, but they are different – sort of. They are the same view into the Royal Gorge and the Hanging Bridge.

But, the postcards have a couple of differences worthy of pointing out.
These cards were both published by the E. C. Kropp Company of Milwaukee. The publisher’s name is on both cards. On the card to the left you will find the name and a card number at the very bottom, slightly cut off in the printing. One the card to the right, the publisher has moved that information to the left margin.
This company has existed, in several forms, for a very long time. It began producing postcards as Kropp in 1898. In 1907, it changed its name to E.C. Kropp Company – just in time to catch the end of the “Address Only on This Side of Card” era. (More about that later regarding these two cards) They were bought in 1956 by L. L. Cook and today are now part of GAF Corporation. It is very interesting to hold a postcard that is over 100 years old, knowing that the company that published it is still around in one form or another.
When we turn the cards over, we can see they are also slightly different on the back. They both have the EC Kropp “bird” logo with the words Post Card on it. But, the slight differences are in two places: 1) the postage stamp square – the frame and the lettering are ever so slightly different from each other; and 2) the warnings that this side is only for the address are worded differently from each other.

These cards make we wonder which one was published first. My guess is that the one on the left came first for two reasons: 1) they discovered that their name and the postcard number were cut off in the production, so they moved them; and 2) as the time for the opportunity to write the address and a message on the back came closer – but was still not legal, they had to warn the writers that the back side of the card was still EXCLUSIVELY for the address.
Even so, as close as these two cards are to each other, I count them as separate cards in my collection because of these slight differences. I don’t see them as duplicates.