Three More Exaggerated Cards

I am not going to comment much on these three post cards. They are from the Edward H. Mitchell production line of exaggerated scenes on post cards from 1909. The produce in the cars are grapes, pears and strawberries. I will point out that the grape pickers in the top post card are still using horses in the field in 1909. Enjoy the views:

Is that a Secret Code???

Last week's post card featured a very large child standing on a flat car with some Navel Oranges. This week the post card is specializing in large peaches and the price of peaches in 1910. This is a post card from the Edward H. Mitchell production line of exaggerated post card scenes. We can see on the top, front of the card that it came from Oakland.

The back of the post card verifies this; it is postmarked as being mailed from Oakland, California. The message on the back is not in a secret code; it is written upside-down. It is telling the reader that the peaches are just now coming into season (mailed July 8, 1910) and that they are selling for 7 to 10 cents per dozen. It also mentions that the grapes are just starting to come into the stores, too.

Let's Get the Kids Involved!

In our previous postings of Edward Mitchell's exaggerated themed post cards we only had railroad cars and very large fruit. On the picture on today's post card he included a very large child. If you know how big a flat car is, that child is humongous! Good thing those oranges are so big; that kid would eat us out of house and home. But, since the theme is "exaggerated" I guess we are not supposed to care.

One Hundred and Fourteen Years Old

The picture on the front of this post card belongs to a series of over 60 post cards that I call "Exaggerated Themes".

I posted some of them a few years ago, so I thought that I will fill in the blog with a few more in this next series of posts. The post cards were the brain child of Edward H. Mitchell. He was born April 27, 1867 in San Francisco and died from a heart attack in Palo Alto, California on October 24, 1932. Most of his postcards are about the West, he was very prolific, and his cards have great color for the time they were created. There are postcards being republished with other publishing companies that Mitchell owned or was a partner in, Pacific Novelty Co. and Souvenir Publishing Co. Mitchell rode the rails, which makes sense in his era. I am sure that he created many postcards about the railroads in exchange for discounted travel. I believe that is where the saying “The road of a thousand Wonders” which appears on many cards came from. Mitchell also was willing to have artists paint hats on people, he loved hats, and add other eye candy to sell postcards. At one point he was even putting sparkle on cards. All postcards printed after 1908 proudly proclaim 'Printed in the United States' on their backside. Edward H. Mitchell gave up postcard publishing around 1923.

The message on the back of this post card is almost 114 years old. It was mailed on July 20, 1910. It is a letter by Edith to her mother in San Francisco letting her know that Edith had spend some time at one of the baths in Alameda, California (that is east, across the bay from San Francisco).

I found this map from a time period of just after this post card message was written. It includes Sunny Cove Baths on the map; it is the bath that is the second one from the left.