Hand Drawn Sky and The Missing Link

The picture on this post card is of one of the steam engines pushing a passenger car up the steep incline on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. Does this sound familiar? These are the opening words on my last blog post. In looking through my collection, I found another G.W. Morris post card that very accurately reflects the concept that the sky on many of their cards was added in by hand. This post card was also printed in Germany.

The title on the front is “Mount Washington and Railroad”. You can see the cog running between the rails to take the train safely up to the top. And at the top, you can see the building waiting for the tourists. The building at the top is not named on the post card, but it is probably the Tip-Top House, built in 1853.

I am not as excited about this post card as I was about the one in the previous blog post. However, I am glad that I have it. It is an example of the “missing link” cards that were printed between the Private Mailing Cards congress allowed in 1898 and the cards that were the result of the new postal regulations of December 24th, 1901, the words Post Card replaced Private Mailing Card on the backs of privately manufactured cards.

cards that included a space for a message next to the address which congress allowed after March 1, 1907.