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Early Real Photo Cards

I can’t tell you who this stylish couple is.  I can’t tell you where they lived, but I can tell you when the photos were taken, within a 4-year period – 1903 to 1907.
The paper these real photo post cards are printed on is an Ansco product called Cyko.  The process of the printing is chlorobromide, yielding a warm brown tone.  Cyko came on the market in 1903 and the undivided-back era ended in 1907, when the Universal Postal Conference agreed to allow a message area on the left side of the back, not just the address.  There’s probably a little slippage on the end date, since, as far as I can tell, the U.S. Post Office didn’t ban these backs, just let them fall out of favor.

The blank area to the right of each picture was there for a message of some sort.  These are either one-offs or part of a very limited edition.

About Bob Lawrence

artist, photographer, reader, postcard collector, jazz listener

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