Author Topic: The Postcard Thread  (Read 503477 times)

0 Members and 9 Guests are viewing this topic.

Rikki Gins

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 13350
  • Alias Frank Albertson
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #705 on: January 27, 2019, 04:56:31 PM »
Hi Rik, awhile back we were talking about condition for older cards.  Given this card is over 100 years old, what would the condition for this card be considered (poor, fair, good, very good, etc), and would it be of interest to collectors?

Hi, PB.  I would say that this postcard is in relatively poor condition, too many wrinkles and some oil spots on the back.  These type of postcards are probably a collectable to some people though, and therefore a few smudges and wrinkles wouldn't put them off from paying a little extra for them.  I could be wrong, but I kind of doubt that there would be any collectors out there that would collect them in mint condition only, because most of them that have survived to this day have been ran through the mail and have messages on them.  I have a number of these comic cards and a couple of them are unused and are in pretty decent shape but most of them, even some unused ones, have smudges or wrinkles.  Ha, they are after all, a thin piece of paper that, as you point out, are over a hundred years old. 

By the way, that man and woman on the card are actors/models who were hired by the postcard company to assume poses that reflect whatever caption is found at the bottom.  They would genearally pose for one caption and then assume another pose to reflect a different caption.  Sometimes, collectors have found enough postcard poses to film them in such a way as to give movement to them.



Rikki Gins

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 13350
  • Alias Frank Albertson
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #706 on: January 27, 2019, 05:06:31 PM »
Almost exactly how I imagined it!
One day I will get a postcard into that photo album!

Nice, Bart, I hope you do.  That picture was taken on top of my washer and dryer, by the way.  I couldn't get the flash to work on my camera, so I had to find the brightest room in the house.  haha

Rikki Gins

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 13350
  • Alias Frank Albertson
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #707 on: January 27, 2019, 05:37:48 PM »
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


PB, I took the liberty of enlarging your ship postcard pic, hope you don't mind.  I would call it a battleship, in part.  Definitely the top half of one anyway.  Unless my eyes deceive me, there is no visible hull on that ship.  It appears to have a number of flotation boats or platforms along the side of it and also, a most unusual platform structure added to the right hand side of it.  There are many things that intrigue and mystify me about the picture.  For instance, I can't picture it voyaging over the high seas, and yet all of those flags must signify different ports of call, right?  Also, I can see some guns sticking out, just over that platform thing I described.  As you pointed out, there are a bunch of sailors on the ship and that does appear to be an American flag to the right.  I checked my Jane's Book of World War One Battleships and none of the American single funnel ships looked like the one in the pic, so I guess we can rule out  it being a WWI ship.  In a way, it almost looks like the ship entered a harbor and then began to sink.  Those floatation devices are keeping it from sinking down any further than the hull.  What a cool picture postcard! 

Edit:  I guess that is a ship's hull, running along the bottom of it.  A very thin one though.  Most unusual.     

Walks_At_Night

  • Hall Of Famer, Morg!
  • Ellevated
  • *****
  • Posts: 16086
  • Morg!
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #708 on: January 27, 2019, 05:42:08 PM »
Here is one of the ones I have from the collection.  It appears to be a photo that's been turned into a post card - as Rik has mentioned being somewhat common in years past.  I'm hoping someone can provide some information on the ship - type of ship, country, era, etc.

One clue may be the ''17 - '' in the lower left on the front side.  There are sailors crowded on the left side, and a few others in other parts of the ship.  The flag on the far right looks like the US flag

As two thirds of these cards are preWWI, and the others are mostly pre WWII, is this a WWI battleship?

@PB Paper Boy, what you have there is definitely a US Navy vessel but it is not a Battleship, nor a Cruiser or Destroyer.  I don't think it is a blue water vessel at all.  I'd say it is a Monitor.  Monitors were used on rivers and protected shorelines - bays, coves, harbors and the like.
Obviously the vessel pictured would founder pretty quickly in the open ocean but it would do just fine on Hampton Roads or the Mississippi.  They played a big part in the American Civil War - afterwards the US Navy slowly phased them out but it took decades.   The vessel pictured here appears to be a "New" Monitor that was built post US Civil War.   During the Vietnam conflict  the US Navy brought the Monitor concept back (ala John Kerry).

The vessel on the postcard might be something close to USS Puritan  (BM-1) which was commissioned in 1882.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


GravitySucks

  • Hall Of Famer!
  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 11813
  • Backup assistant deputy administrator in training
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #709 on: January 27, 2019, 05:42:31 PM »
@Rikki Gins I just assumed those were Navy semaphore flags. I’m on my iPhone so I can’t quite tell.
 

visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Are we having fun yet?

Rikki Gins

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 13350
  • Alias Frank Albertson
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #710 on: January 27, 2019, 05:46:36 PM »
@Rikki Gins I just assumed those were Navy semaphore flags. I’m on my iPhone so I can’t quite tell.
 

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Oh yes, Gravity, that must be what they are.  By enlarging the picture, I could see the ship's hull better.  At first I thought there were multiple platforms running along it.  Still, it seems that there is hardly enough hull there to keep the ship afloat. haha

Rikki Gins

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 13350
  • Alias Frank Albertson
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #711 on: January 27, 2019, 05:54:38 PM »
@PB Paper Boy, what you have there is definitely a US Navy vessel but it is not a Battleship, nor a Cruiser or Destroyer.  I don't think it is a blue water vessel at all.  I'd say it is a Monitor.  Monitors were used on rivers and protected shorelines - bays, coves, harbors and the like.
Obviously the vessel pictured would founder pretty quickly in the open ocean but it would do just fine on Hampton Roads or the Mississippi.  They played a big part in the American Civil War - afterwards the US Navy slowly phased them out but it took decades.   The vessel pictured here appears to be a "New" Monitor that was built post US Civil War.   During the Vietnam conflict  the US Navy brought the Monitor concept back (ala John Kerry).

The vessel on the postcard might be something close to USS Puritan  (BM-1) which was commissioned in 1882.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Ha, Walks, I wish you would have posted your info a little sooner, you could have saved me some posts.  But you are right, that must be a river boat.  PB's boat does look pretty old.  Perhaps it was in use during the Civil War and lasted for awhile, into more modern times?

Walks_At_Night

  • Hall Of Famer, Morg!
  • Ellevated
  • *****
  • Posts: 16086
  • Morg!
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #712 on: January 27, 2019, 06:01:47 PM »
Ha, Walks, I wish you would have posted your info a little sooner, you could have saved me some posts.  But you are right, that must be a river boat.  PB's boat does look pretty old.  Perhaps it was in use during the Civil War and lasted for awhile, into more modern times?

The Navy kept some of the Civil War boats until around 1900 or so.  Also in the 1880's they took some, pulled them apart and rebuilt them as "New" Monitors that had designation of BM. These stayed around for quite some time and were used as far away as China.  PB's boat seems to have one fore turret but none a stern.  The ones I've checked out seem to be two turreted vessels with one for and one aft.     

Walks_At_Night

  • Hall Of Famer, Morg!
  • Ellevated
  • *****
  • Posts: 16086
  • Morg!
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #713 on: January 27, 2019, 06:12:16 PM »
Got it.  I believe it is an Arkansas class Monitor.   The US Navy had 4 of these that were built around 1899 to 1903 - USS Arkansas, USS Florida, USS Wyoming and USS Nevada.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Rikki Gins

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 13350
  • Alias Frank Albertson
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #714 on: January 27, 2019, 07:30:09 PM »
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


visitors can't see pics , please register or login

PB

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 15524
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #715 on: January 28, 2019, 07:02:25 AM »
Got it.  I believe it is an Arkansas class Monitor.   The US Navy had 4 of these that were built around 1899 to 1903 - USS Arkansas, USS Florida, USS Wyoming and USS Nevada.

Thanks everyone for the ideas and research, learned a little about ships going back to the Civil War.  Walks, it's almost certainly one of these. 

I'd wondered why someone made the photo into a post card, and since there was nothing written about it on the back whether people seeing it at the time would already be aware of it's significance.

PB

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 15524
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #716 on: January 28, 2019, 07:04:03 AM »
Rik, how do you post your attachments, mine look like crap unless they are images from the internet?

Bart Ell

  • Shithead
  • Ellevated
  • *****
  • Posts: 24765
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #717 on: January 28, 2019, 07:39:57 AM »
The Navy kept some of the Civil War boats until around 1900 or so.  Also in the 1880's they took some, pulled them apart and rebuilt them as "New" Monitors that had designation of BM. These stayed around for quite some time and were used as far away as China.  PB's boat seems to have one fore turret but none a stern.  The ones I've checked out seem to be two turreted vessels with one for and one aft.   

Complete nonsense.
Water travel was not invented until 1941.


Rikki Gins

  • Ellevated
  • ******
  • Posts: 13350
  • Alias Frank Albertson
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #718 on: January 28, 2019, 02:18:43 PM »
Rik, how do you post your attachments, mine look like crap unless they are images from the internet?

I don't quite know how it works, but after I take a postcard out of the box, I will scan it onto my desktop and from there, transport the image to a free picture processing site called Postimage (https://postimages.org/)  where I get a Direct link https code that fits inside the Insert Image brackets in the EllGab Post reply box.  The postcard image comes out nice and big, that way.  Actually your attached images look just fine and will enlarge nicely after a couple clicks.  I should use the attachment feature more often, especially in the 100 Years Ago thread.  I like how it gives you a count as to how many people are viewing the image.  I hope this helps you.

albrecht

  • Ellightened
  • ******
  • Posts: 2826
Re: The Postcard Thread
« Reply #719 on: January 28, 2019, 04:19:38 PM »
Got it.  I believe it is an Arkansas class Monitor.   The US Navy had 4 of these that were built around 1899 to 1903 - USS Arkansas, USS Florida, USS Wyoming and USS Nevada.



That class of boat looks retarded and easily swamped. Do vessels of that class also screw their sisters?  ;) 

Kidding. Good find and interesting to see the questions solved.