Just One More

I know that in my last blog post I said that I am going to be writing about the post cards I have collected while I was focused on Pikes Peak. Well, wouldn't you know it... the first card I pick up is this one.

Two women at the top of Pikes Peak enjoying the sunrise. It isn't exactly a train post card, but it is about Pikes Peak, which relates it to my train post card collection. It looks like it is 100% hand drawn - not photography at all. It is old, however, so I like it. This card is from the Divided Back Era (1907-1915). It might be from the later part of that era. Maybe they discovered that by putting the title at the bottom on a white background they were saving money in ink. The title on this one is "2056 - SUNRISE FROM PIKE'S PEAK, COLORADO."

The back of the post card tells us that it was published by the Great Western Post Card Company in Denver, Colorado. It was printed in Leipzig, Germany. Many post cards published in the United States were printed in Germany, where the printing processes were well developed. Just before World War One broke out one hundred years ago this year, some of that technology was brought to the States. The company that printed this card was started in 1908. So, we can date this card to have been printed between 1908 and 1914. The fashionable coats worn by the women might tell us the same thing.

The End of the Line

This is the last of the Pikes Peak post cards I will blog about in this series. I start with the youngest of the cards in my collection and worked my way back in history. The farther back I went in time, the less I knew about the post cards, their publishers and their printers. That includes this one.

This post card is number 113 in the embossed series of post cards about which I have been writing.

The picture on the front includes as a background the state flower of Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Columbine, also known as the Aquilegia saximontana. The post card calls it the Colorado Columbine. The picture includes a donkey, this was a popular way to climb to the top of Pikes Peak for the adventurous. There is still a club dedicated to preserving the donkey near Pikes Peak; you can find out about these people at: pikespeaklongears.com

Of course, the train, the building at the top and the observation platform have to be included. Below the picture, the printer reminds us that the top of the peak is 14,147 feet above sea level.

The back of the card does not tell much of anything, but it does confirm that it is part of the series of embossed post cards.

I have been collecting more post cards for my collection while I have been blogging about Pikes Peak. The next series of blogs will be about these cards so that I can catalog them and put them into my collection - getting closer to 3,000 every day.

What is it like at the top?

These two cards are pictures of what it was like at the top of Pikes Peak in the early 1900s. The train company that took the passengers to the top of the mountain was the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railroad. It is indicated as the "M & PP R.R." on the back of the tender of the engine. One can see how a simple weather observation building has become a "tourist trap" by looking at the set of buildings and the observation tower. The ruggedness is still very clear as indicated by the rocks and boulders in the picture.

These two card are part of a series. We have seen their "siblings" in earlier posts like two weeks ago. The top post card is part of the embossed series of cards. The bottom one looks like it was simply copied from the first one - including the word "Copyrighted".
Both are from the Undivided Back Era (1901 - 1907). I am beginning to wonder if the same publisher is printing two sets of series of cards. The words on the backs of these cards (and cards series previously posted on this blog) use the same font style and size. They are just two different colors. It could be that the publisher found it cheaper not to emboss the post cards moving forward and so went back to the beginning of the series and reprinted all the cards without the embossing. One the other hand, the publisher wanted to publish two price ranges of cards and so embossed one set and left the other set flat.

The postmarks on the back of the top card tell us that this card was mailed from Burlington, Colorado on July 26, 1906 at 5:00 PM and it arrived in Omaha, Nebraska on July 27th at 10 AM. That post card traveled over 400 miles overnight. The postal system was efficient back then!!

I Know Nothing!!

“I know nothing…” is a quote from Sargent Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes, a television program from the 60s. It describes pretty well what I know about this post card. I know that the publisher is the Art Souvenir Syndicate. Their mailing address was Box 1528 in Denver, Colorado. By searching on the internet for anything about this company, I found that it existed in the early 20th century in Denver, Colorado. That is about it!!

I do not know who the printer was, but I do know that the printer had heart. Most of the post cards in my collection from this era (Undivided Back Era (1901 – 1907) did not leave much room for messages from the sender to the receiver. The only space for the message was on the front of the post card, where the image usually took up much of the room. This post card leaves plenty of room for a message.

This is the back of the post card. It tells us only that this post card came from the Undivided Back Era (1901 - 1907).

The Chicken or the Egg?

The Chicken or the Egg? That is the perennial question about which came first. Today, we are not looking at chickens and eggs but at the same picture published by different companies. The sleuth in me wants to know which came first, the top one or the bottom two.

The first hint that the top one came first is that the title is much longer. Being the first picture of this scene, one would want to give as much information as possible so that the viewer knows what he or she is looking at. The second hint that this one came first is that the picture is so clear and sharp. At the left side of the card, where the clouds meet the border, one can see the fibers of the brush leaving a distinct pattern. Each window in the passenger car is clearly demarcated; the stones and boulders are very distinct from one another; the colors are crisp.

The only hint that the other two came first is that the embossment of these cards is much sharper. When I turn the cards over, the top two have very deep craters from the embossing. The top card is relatively flat, but still embossed.

Even between the two bottom cards, there is evidence that these are the results of two different runs of prints. All three titles of the post card are distinct from each other.

The only things that I do know about these cards are 1) they are pictures of Pikes Peak; 2) Pikes Peak is 14, 147 feet tall; 3) these are all number 116 in a series of prints; 4) they are all from the Undivided Back Era (1901 – 1907) and 5) the bottom post card was mailed in 1906.

Once again, I am asking for your assistance in providing any other identifying information about the post cards. I am especially looking forward to knowing which company used the American flag on the staff like this.