First of all, Benhams, in case you might have forgotten, is about 6 miles NNW of Bristol (at the State Line) in Washington County. To jog your memory further, recall where Benhams Road, Rich Valley Road and Wolf Run Road all come together? Yep, that’s Benhams.
This is a sales sample card from the Nyce Manufacturing Company of Vernfield PA. Notice that they make no claim that the scene above is anywhere near Benhams…it’s just a random shot with an old car in it. You can get 20 different choices for your Chamber of Commerce issue!And, look, if you buy 1000 with your town name in brilliant red ink, you could flog them for a penny each to anyone who wandered into the vicinity and make $2.10, which was nothing to sneeze at in the 1920s. I’m tagging this as 1920s because the stippling of the print which, I think, was attempting to imitate the fine German litho printing that became unavailable to United States publishers at the beginning of WWI.
Nice (haha, pun intended) card in reasonably good shape for being around 90 years old.
Monthly Archives: November 2015
Sales Sample Postcard
Le Caire. Les Pyramides.
This is a very early postcard, possibly lithographed in Germany. The issuing company is Vegnios & Zachos, Cairo & Luxor. Card 401.
I did a search of antique Cairo postcards and, while I saw similar designs, I did not find this one. Bravely I will continue on. Bravely.
Good Day
There are so many comments I could make about this picture, but the more I looked at it, the less snarky I got.Here it is on hot, probably weekend, in August, 1954. Gramps is having a good day. And the charming lady is going to have sunburned toes, if she’s not careful.
No idea where this was taken or who these people are. Such is the case with many of the photos I find in antique stores.
The lady, probably in her twenties in this picture, would be in her 80s now.
The Take-off
Easily one of my favorite airline cards. This great 1947 shot, unattributed except for the “Kodachrome by Trans World Airline” cut line, is of a DC-3.
This same shot, on an earlier card, is noted as a “Color Foto by Trans World Airline”.
It’s a linen-finish card. On the back is the TWA logo and “Litho in U.S.A. – 3-265, 9 -47”
The Cow Card
Yeah, I took one look at this one and thought, “That’s just bizarre. A cow. In a pond. Water streaming from the cow’s mouth, since it has just taken a drink from the, probably, scummy pond water. Looking at, what?”
You would get this from some soi disant friend. What does it mean? I miss you because you remind me of a cow?
It is totally unenhanced. Printed in New York state. Divided back. Postally unused. Holy cow…
Jet America
This is a Jet America kiddie wing, about 3″ tip-to-tip. As you can read here, JA was a West Coast airline that only lasted from 1981 – 1987.
Air France Boeing 707-328
Air France flew this Boeing 707-328 Intercontinental, or one like it, from 1959 to 1979. Boeing made 174 of these.
on the back:
Boeing 707 Intercontinental
(description in French)
The giant 140-ton four-engined intercontinental jet airliner can carry 180 passengers. Flying at 600 m.p.h., this plane operates on all major transocean routes. (in English)
Réf. 21.455/P – 5-62 – Printed in France – I.V.O. Paris-Evian
Parachutist
What we have here, my friends, is a professional parachutist all decked out to leap from the nearest airplane or dirigible.
I hope he tightens all those straps up.
This is a DOPS real photo post card. I am given to believe that DOPS was a real photo postcard paper tradename used by the Ansco Company of Binghampton NY between 1925 and 1942. I’ve cropped the image. The full card is 3.5 x 5.5″ and this image is 3 x 4.5″.
Hoodlums
I don’t know if these guys are mobsters. There is zero information on this card. It’s a real-photo, for sure, but not a Kodak one, so my dating information is useless.
The guy standing is well dressed. Suit with suspenders and one of those fashionable (then) shorty ties. But look how the cuffs are on the sitting guy’s pants. Maybe he wanted to show off his shoes.
The paper on the floor is pretty shabby. It looks like a corner chair that he’s sitting in, or maybe he’s just sitting sideways in a regular chair.
Grim looking guys, though.
Pennsylvania Central Airlines
This rather small stewardess pinback is Pennsylvania Central Airlines (PCA The Capital Airlines).
Here’s the story on PCA. If the dates are correct on that page, it means that this pin dates to a time prior to 1948, when the company became Capital Airlines, dropping the “Pennsylvania” from its name.
I passed this by at first until the owner of the antique store (a building crammed so full of stuff that only narrow, one-person passageways led from one area to the next) pointed it out as airline related. Glad he did.
Uncle Bob's Pix 