Mabel is going to the top of Pikes Peak

Pikes Peak rises to 14,115 feet above sea level in the state of Colorado.

Mountains with elevations this high have a very slow melting rate of the snow that it accumulates over the winter. Here, in this picture on this post card we see how that affects the ride up the mountain on the Pikes Peak Cog Railroad.

At the beginning of Spring it was announced that Pikes Peak would not open this year... and maybe never again. It was too old and needed too much money to rehabilitate it. https://www.pikes-peak.com/pikes-peak-cog-railway-closed/

Recently there was a second announcement that this may not be the case. A new company has either purchased the railroad or will pitch in to rehabilitate it. Keep watching the news!!!

Pikes Peak is named for Zebulon Montgomery Pike, an early explorer of the Southwestern United States. Lieutenant Pike (later General Pike), first sighted what he termed "The Great Peak" in mid-November of 1806. A few days later, he attempted to climb the mountain with a small band of men, however, heavy snows around the 10,000-foot level turned his party back. In 1820, Edwin James, a botanist who climbed many peaks in Colorado, made it to the top. The first woman, Julia Holmes, climbed the peak in 1858.

In 1873, the U.S. Signal Service (an early Weather Bureau) built a telegraph station on the summit to monitor the weather. The station was lived in by Sergeant John O'Keefe.

On the afternoon of June 30th, 1891, the first passenger train, carrying a church choir from Denver, made it to the summit of Pikes Peak by train. Mabel, the author of today's post card, decided that she would rather drive up to the top of the mountain in the middle of July, 1939.

She is letting her good friend Mrs. James Baker know this little tid-bit of information. The post card is being sent to Sipesville, Pennsylvania. It is a town just about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and 30 miles south of where the Johnstown Flood of 1889 happened.

We have seen the little mascot in the top center of the post card before. This is the emblem (plus the arrow pointing up at it) used by the H.H. Tammen Company on their post cards.

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.

I Think I Can!

This post card shows one of the early trains headed up to the top of Pikes Peak. It looks like it would be a good illustration of the tale of the little train that kept saying, “I think I can; I think I can..”

The words at the bottom of the picture tell us that this is happening at Shady Springs Colorado. This quote comes directly from the people who operate the Pikes Peak Cog Railroad, "The story behind Shady Springs really is not that great. It is a set of natural springs that have pooled together under a stand of trees. So Shady Springs is essentially a set of springs under the trees. It is, however, a favorite spot for bears in the summer time." My wife and I plan on being there in September; maybe we will see some bears!!

When we turn the post card over we are overwhelmed by the amount of information that can be gleaned from the back. First, it is a post card that was printed in the Undivided Back Era. The bottom left clearly states that “THIS SIDE IS FOR THE ADDRESS ONLY.” That means that it was printed before March 1, 1907. Then, when we look at the postmark we find out that it was mailed just 4 days after the changes at the post office took effect. This card was mailed on March 5, 1907 which means it was mailed 4 days into the Divided Back Era. After March 1st the left side of the post cards were reserved for the address of the receiver but the right hand side could be used for a short message. Evidently, this new twist in the post cards was not advertised well enough for the sender to know this. Her message in still crammed onto the front, bottom of the post card: “Hope you are feeling as well as I am.”

Second (or third if you include the postmark information), his card was printed in Germany. The logo in the top left has the word Germany under it. Two cities in Germany are also mentioned after the name of the post card publisher: Leipzig and Dresden.

Fourth, the company that printed the post card was The American News Company. This information comes from the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York: “Founded by Sinclair Tousey in 1864 this firm became a major distributor of books, magazines, newspapers, comic books and postcards exclusively through their national network of more than 300 affiliated news agencies. Nearly all of their output was in view-cards and they mostly covered the New York, mid-Atlantic region. In addition to distributing postcards, they seem to have published some as well and worked as a middleman for many smaller publishers wishing to produce cards. Most of their cards were printed in Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin, Germany, but they switched to American and French printers during World War One. They often became the focus of litigation from trying to monopolize distribution of printed material in the United States. Their closure in 1957 led to great difficulties in distribution, putting many small publishers out of business as well.”

Their first post cards were black and white. Then, they added Poly-Chrome post cards to their repertoire. This is one of those types of cards – again, the logo at the top left. The following information is also taken from the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York: “A German Made card printed in photo-chromolithography with heavy retouching. Its colors are bright and so flat that they almost resemble screenprints. The poly-chrome process was almost exclusively used before 1907, and was the firmís first color printing technique. Other European publishers also used the same process but without the Poly-Chrome name.
Prefix A (1903-1907). Many of these cards were reissued.
Prefix M Cards with the Poly-chrome name were also printed in the United States during the First World War, with white borders, but these lithographic cards have a grained texture. They were not always published by the American News Company.”

Fifth, it mentions above something about Prefix A. The number of this post card is “A 6447”, to that means it was printed between 1903 and 1907. This corroborates the observation above about the age of the card.

Sixth, the publisher of the post card was The Colorado News Company of Denver, Colorado. They were a publisher and distributor for The American News Company.

Quantity Over Quality

This post card is an example of how popular post cards were in the early 1900s. They were producing them so quickly that sometimes something might slip on the production.

In this case the card stock cutter missed its mark.

The white strip at the top of the post card is supposed to be cut in half length-wise. The top half is to be the bottom of the previous card and the bottom is to be the top of this post card. Instead we get to have a “sneak peak” at the bottom of the previous post card along with this post card.

OR the bottom of this post card is showing at the top instead of at the bottom is another way of looking at the situation.

Anyway… This is a close up of the crew of one of the engines that pulls a car up to the top of Pikes Peak. There is no obvious number on the engine, but it is one of the early models.

This post card belongs to the Divided Back Era, so it was published between 1907 and 1915. There is no indication on the front or the back who the printer or the publisher were. But the fancy design around the words POST CARD on the back will reveals one or the other once we can break that code!!

Open at Night!

These three post cards illustrate for us the fact that Pikes Peak was not just a daytime attraction. We have already seen that the weather station at the top of the peak was slowly transformed as the owners added an overnight accommodation as well as other amenities.

The top two post cards are the same picture. It is taken from the top of the peak looking back down the tracks toward the direction from which the trains arrive. When I first saw this picture my imagination told me that someone had lost a nickel. The two men at the back were looking for it where it was dropped. The closest two men are going to where the light is better so they can see the ground better. I have a great imagination!!

The bottom post card is the same building as seem from the other end – what one sees as one approached it from downhill. The picture was obviously not taken in the middle of the summer. There are icicles hanging from the tower and the building.

When I flip over the two top cards, I see that one has been published by the Illustrated Postal Card Company of New York.It only existed from 1905 to 1914 at 520 West 84th Street in New York City. You can see that the post card was printed in Germany; this was prior to the beginning of World War One. We can trace that the cards of this company were printed by a certain Emil Pinkau in Leipzig in the Saxony region of Germany. They started printing their own post cards in 1909 – just in time to avoid a dearth of cards because of the war. You can notice that they had two logos; one of the eagle and the other the “scribble” before the word “Illustrated”.

The second card has not been claimed by anyone. It has a distinctive double-line down the middle and the front for the words “POST CARD” is distinctive. I hope someday to find out who this publisher or printer is. I included it because there is a date printed on the card. It is August 30, 1909. This, combined with the information of the above publisher, gives us a clear timeline for both cards. They are from the Divided Back Era which lasted from about 1907 to 1915; and now we can narrow it down to one specific year: 1909.

The bottom card, too, does not have a publisher indicated on it. But, it does have a date. It was posted in August of 1912. In the text written on the post card we are given a bit of insight into history.

The writer is telling the receiver that the price to go to the top of Pikes Peak was $5.20. $5.00 was the cost to go to the top of the peak and 20 cents was the cost to get into the Manitou Springs. Plus, it tells us that it snowed in August in Colorado in 1912.

The "Owner" of Pikes Peak

These two post cards continue the theme of looking at various aspects of Pikes Peak and the parties that were responsible for the production of the post cards that highlighted the famous mountain top. The top card is titled, “Climbing Son-of-a-Gun Hill”

and the bottom is titled, “Phantom Curve.” These two pictures were taken by someone who knew Pikes Peak well: Joseph Hiestand. It says so in the bottom right hand corner of each of these post cards. I have enlarged one of the credits for you to see.

Joseph G. Hiestand was heavily involved in the promotion and the early success of Pikes Peak as a tourist attraction. He owned both the Ute Iron Springs hotel at the bottom of the peak and the Summit House at the top of the peak.

The following information was taken from these two websites:
http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=1109
https://www.georgeglazer.com/prints/vista/colorado.html

Joseph Gonder Hiestand was born in Strasburg, Pennsylvania on August 15, 1860. He grew up in Lewiston, Pennsylvania, and already on the 1880 Philadelphia census, at the age of 20, he was listing himself as a “mineralogist.” Later he also studied with George F. Kunz of Tiffany's in New York, who encouraged him to go west.

Hiestand spent the latter years of his life living part of the time in New York, where his wife and three daughters lived year-round, but after divorcing around 1900 he moved to Manitou Springs, where he had been spending his summers. There he acquired ownership of the Ute Iron Springs, adjoining the station of the cog road up Pikes Peak. He built a pavilion and hotel at the springs which became a popular tourist attraction, and he was also owner of the Summit House on Pikes Peak.

In an anecdote recorded in The Pike’s Peak Cog Road (1972) by Morris W. Abbott, Hiestand would take a toboggan down the rails of the cog road at the end of his workday, and is credited with having made the entire trip in 11 minutes at the astonishing rate of speed of 50 mph.

He was well known for his photography of the Pikes Peak area, was the official photographer for the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway. He even published a book: SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK Via the Cog Road in 1903.

Hiestand was also a prominent local collector and dealer in mineral specimens. He made early discoveries of topaz and phenacite in Colorado which he brought to the attention of the scientific community. In 1896 he issued a 24-page booklet called Colorado minerals. It was given out "compliments of J. G. Hiestand, collector and dealer in fine mineral specimens."

Heistand had a mineral shop on Fairview Avenue in Manitou Springs, Colorado. Hiestand exhibited his collection at the 1887 Exposition, as reported in the Manitou Springs Journal (September 3, 1887). The collection was also displayed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Manitou Springs Journal for May 28, 1898 reported on the sale of Heistand's mineral collection as follows: “No one will deny that the most beautiful thing in Manitou is the case of mineral specimens at the Iron Springs pavilion, collected and arranged by Mr. J.G. Hiestand. It is well worth the hundred miles travel to see the collection. "The specimens are the handsomest and are such as are not found in any other collection. The cave formations are particularly gorgeous. The crystallization is perfect. There are twelve or fifteen hundred specimens in the cabinet ranging all the way from a venus hairstone to gold nuggets that run $200,000 to the ton.”

On January 1, 1916 he accidentally shot himself dead while cleaning his guns.

The backs of the cards show that they were designed to be souvenirs of the trip up the mountain. There is a box in the top left of the card where an official stamp can be impressed to prove that the traveller had made it to the top!!

At the Top

These are two post cards showing The Summit House on the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado as it was in the early 1900s.

In July of 1873, after the US Army sent a couple of scouting expeditions to the top of Pikes Peak it was agreed that it would be a perfect location to observe the weather in order to be able to perform better forecasts. Later that year a weather observatory was built with two rooms: an office & officer’s bedroom and a kitchen, storeroom and sleeping quarters for the other men. It was not very big (18 x 30 feet) but the walls were very thick (18 inches) to protect it from the weather they were going to observe all year round. It was officially opened on October 11th of that year. In 1882, the building was enlarged to accommodate the number of visitors they were receiving. In 1888, the weather observatory was closed.

In the meantime, Pikes Peak was gaining in popularity as a destination, so a railway was built to the summit. In 1889 a log cabin was added to the top of the mountain by an entrepreneur who wanted to sell things to the tourists. The first train arrived June 29, 1891.

In 1892 the owners of the railway renovated the signal station. When they were finished, what they now called “The Summit House” could hole up to 15 guests, a small cafeteria and a souvenir shop. Soon, it was upgraded to hold more people and more business.

About 10 years later The Summit House was again upgraded and expanded. This time, they added a tower at one end of the building. Soon, it was moved to the roof of The Summit House so those who paid the 25 cent entry fee could see in all directions from the top of the Peak. This is the building seen on the post cards.
The above information was gleaned from the website: http://pikespeak.us.com/Learn/history.html

If you would like to see what it is like at the top of Pikes Peak right now go to this website: http://www.keno.org/colorado_web_cams/pikes_peak_cams.htm

Both post cards are from the White Border Era (1915 - 1930). The top post card was printed by Curt Goerke from Colorado Springs. He was quite the entrepreneur himself. He discovered a rock formation that looked like a boulder balanced on one of its ends. During the 1890's at the age of 14 he began taking photographs of visitors to the rock for a quarter of a dollar each. Soon he was making so much money that his father Paul quit his job, learned photography, and bought Balanced Rock and nearby Mushroom Park for $400. By the first decade of the twentieth century, they were taking pictures of tourists - often seating them atop the four burros kept nearby. Curt published post cards of other tourist destinations in Colorado and advertised on those cards that the purchaser (and the receiver of the post card, if it was mailed) should see . Balanced Rock no longer was private property but became a part of the Garden of the Gods Park the early 1930's.

The little “M” in the coffee cup at the bottom, middle of the second post card represents the Miller Art Company out of Brooklyn, New York, the printer of this post card.They existed from 1921 to 1941. It was published by the Puffer Mercantile Company. This was a grocery store chain that was founded in the early 1900s by L.A. Puffer and Milo Rowell. L.A.’s son Harry continued in his father’s footsteps and helped the company to grow across the Midwestern United States.

Relatives or Coincidence?

Here are three more post cards from Pikes Peak in Colorado.

One can easily conclude from looking at the fronts of these three post cards that they are related – either all were printed by the same printer and sold to different publishers or, perhaps, a publisher “borrowed” the picture for its own use (a common practice in those days). But, one can certainly believe that these three cards are related to each other based on the fronts.

They are definitely all the same picture. They all have the same caption in the bottom right of the post card: “8408. Snow Drifts on Pike’s Peak Cog Road, Colo.” The captions are all in the same font. The only difference on the fronts of these cards is that the third card has a white border. That puts the top two cards in the Divided Back Era (1907-1915) and the bottom card in the White Border Era (1915-1930).

When we turn the post cards over and carefully examine the backs,

we can potentially draw the same conclusion as we do by looking at the fronts of these cards: that maybe they are inter-related.
The top two cards share the same fancy script and decorations around the words Post Card. The bottom two cards share the exact same wording describing the fronts of the post cards.

Here is my unscientific conclusion:
We learned in the last blog that the H.H. Tammen Company evolved between 1896 and 1953. Perhaps we are looking at some of the evolution right here on these three cards. The H.H. Tammen Company owned the picture. The post cards of this picture were might popular and worth reprinting several times. The first printing was simply the post card with the caption on the front and the reminder on the back that “This space can be used for a written message, using one-cent stamp”. The second printing included a longer description of the front of the card – a development in the history of picture post cards. The third printing included the name of the company and its cute “alien” mascot.

Development of the Linen Post Card

Continuing on the theme of Pikes Peak, I have scanned three post cards from the Linen Post Card era.

Two of these cards are from 1939 and 1941. Because the third one is postally unused, I cannot tell you the exact age of the card. Two of them are from the H.H. Tammen Company which existed from 1896 to 1953; the other is from the E. C. Kropp Company, which existed from 1907 to 1956.

I chose the top two, not because they share the same picture, but because they share the same picture on two different types of card stock.

The post card on the left is from the White Border Era (1915-1930). The card stock is smooth and shiny, although certainly not as shiny as a Chrome Post Card. The white border was developed on post cards for the printers and publishers to save money on the cost of ink. While printing on post card may not seem like a large savings, if one multiplies that amount of unprinted space by the millions of post cards printed during this era, it adds up to a huge savings.

The post card on the right looks like it is from the Linen Post Card Era (1930-1945). While saving money in the same manner as the previous era, the publishers added a quality to the post card. In a system of paper making adding rag content into the paper used for card stock, the paper took on a textured feeling. Rumor has it that Curt Otto Teich might have invented this style of card. If he didn’t invent it, he certainly perfected it!

This card is not from the Curt Teich Company. It is from the H.H. Tammen Company. I am not convinced that it is an actual Linen Post Card. As I hold it up to the light and feel the texture, I am thinking that the printer simply ran the card through a machine that texturized the card. I have tried to scan a close-up of the linen-style card so that you can see the texture difference. You can see a regular pattern of squares that have what look like indentations into the post card. These indents show best on the white border.

I think the H. H. Tammen Company either made linen cards of much lesser quality than the Curt Teich Company or did their best to imitate the look and feel of a linen card without going through the real process. So, when I hold the two H.H. Tammen cards from above next to each other, the quality difference is sort of obvious. But, when I hold this H.H. Tammen card next to a Curt Teich Linen Era Post Card the difference jumps out at me.

The H.H. Tammen Company was based in Denver, Colorado. It was founded by Harry Heye Tammen, who was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1881 he and his business partner started H.H. Tammen and Company. That name changed in 1896 when they added two more partners: Carl Litzenberger and Joseph Cox. The new company was called the H.H. Tammen Curio Company.

The bottom post card is included in this set simply because it, too, shows the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway in the Spring with snow on either side of the tracks. It seems to have been taken from very close to where the other picture was taken. This post card was printed by the E. C. Kropp Company. The company was founded in 1907 and based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin until they were sold to L.L. Cook in 1956. E.C. Kropp began publishing and printing in 1898 but, became the E.C. Kropp Company in 1907. I understand that they produced some high quality linen cards, but I don’t have any in my train post card collection.

This post card was printed for the publisher “Garden of the Gods”, which is a tourist destination down the hill from Pikes Peak in Colorado. The story of the “Famous Balanced Rock” is interesting but not related to my train post cards other than the passing reference on this post card. You can read its story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_the_Gods. These are the backs of the three cards.
There are only two pictures because the H.H. Tammen Company didn't change the back from one style of post card to the other. So, I chose this one because there is an official stamp at the top telling us that someone was up on the top of Pikes Peak on August 17, 1941. The other H.H. Tammen post card is postmarked from July 19, 1939 - just a few short months before World War II began with the invasion of Poland.

So Many Good Things...

There are so many good things about this post card. The first, of course, is that there is a picture of a train on it!!

The second good thing is the quality of the linen paper on which it is printed. It exudes quality. You can see and feel the linen easily. There is no doubting that there is texture to the surface of this card.

Thirdly, The quality of the print job. I can read the word "OBSERVATION" on the top of the observatory tower without a magnifying glass. The cogs in the middle of the two tracks are very clearly there. With a magnifying glass, I can read, "Manitou & Pikes Peak" on the side of the engine.

The back of the post card is just as wonderful. It very clearly states that this card was printed by the Curt Teich Company using their patented "C.T. Art-Colortone" method for the Sanborn Souvenir Company in Denver, Colorado.

Best of all, it actually dates the card for us!! The number above the word POST in POST CARD tells us this information. The card was printed in the 1930s (the letter A); 1937 to be exact (the number 7) and it was the 602nd print run of that year. The letter H confirms that yes, indeed, this is a linen post card. In 1937 there were 3,989 print runs of linen cards by the Curt Teich Company. Using mathematical principals of deduction, we can guess that this card was printed sometime near the end of February or the beginning of March of that year.

Oh, yeah. It is a very nice picture on the front, too.

Linen Post Cards

Continuing on the theme of Pikes Peak, I have scanned three post cards from the Linen Post Card era. The ages of these cards range from the 1930s to the mid-1940s. Because they are postally unused, I cannot tell you the exact age of any of the cards. Two of them are from the H.H. Tammen Company which existed from 1896 to 1953; one is from the Sanborn Souvenir Company, which existed from 1920 to 1976. This is quite the range of dates but, we can narrow it down a bit.These three post cards are what they call Linen Post Cards. In about 1930 publishers began to print post cards on a linen paper stock. These post cards were called linen because the rag content within the paper gave these post cards a textured “feel.” You can also see the weave in the cards if you hold them just right in the lighting. They were popular among the printers and publishers because they were cheaper to produce and they accepted the use of bright dyes for coloring the pictures on the faces of the cards. Curt Otto Teich was among the early linen post card publishers; some say his company invented the process. The advent of chrome post cards (1939) brought this era to an end. You can see some example of chrome post cards in my previous blog post.

Although you couldn’t tell it by the smoke coming out of the engine, the top post card is a view of Windy Point on the way up to Pikes Peak. It is a product of the H.H. Tammen Company. There is no indicator on the card about who might have printed the card.

The middle card is showing a train as it passed the timberline on Pikes Peak. This was published by the Sanborn Souvenir Company from Denver, Colorado. There is no indicator of the printer on the back of the card, but the number on the front hints that it may have been the Curt Teich Company. The visual “feel” of the card places it back in the early 1900s; but, the linen in the card says otherwise. If I am correct in interpreting the number in the bottom right hand corner of the card (14400-N), this was a reprint of a post card that the Curt Teich Company first printed in 1908. The N in Curt Teich parlance indicates that this card is a reprint.

The bottom card is also from the H.H. Tammen Company and again there is no indicator of who the printer was. One way of dating this card might be to know more about cars than trains.

There are a couple of automobiles at the top of Pikes Peak. If I knew as much about cars as I do about trains, I could probably tell you the year and make of the cars. We could then date the post card to a time after that.

Chrome Cards

The theme of these post cards, as mentioned in my last blog, is Pikes Peak. The ages of these cards range from the 1950s to the 1970s.

This collection of post cards is from the modern version of post cards. They are what are called chrome post cards. In 1946 Kodak stared to produce and market Ektachrome transparent film. Kodachrome was used to make photographs and Ektachrome was used to make slides. I remember sitting through many home slide shows of our family vacations and other family activities. The pictures that we were able to blow up to the size of the wall of our living room were still very clear – they were not what we would call today pixilated at all.

In the case of these post cards those very clear pictures that could be projected also make extremely clear pictures on card stock. There is also a very smooth and shiny finish on the cards that protect the picture from handprints, etc. The finish on most of the post cards you can buy today look very similar to these cards.

The printers and publishers represented on these cards include:

Printers – Mike Roberts
Rembrant Cards
Dexter Press
Curt Otto Teich

Publishers – Pikes Peak News Agency
Noble of Colorado Springs, CO
Sanborn Souvenir
Cooper Post Card Co.
Altitude Publishing of Aurora, CO