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.
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