Dating photo postcards, dating postcards

Most old photo papers used silver in their emulsions.

This is the same style used today. Writing was still not permitted on the address side. Numbering was an essential way of keeping tract of large inventory.

White Border Era Most post cards produced in the United States were printed during this period. Movie star postcards have been collected by the public since the silent era.

Stamp Boxes for Real Photo Vintage Postcards

The style of these boxes varied over time. They may or may not have a white border, or a divided back, or other features of post cards, depending on the paper the photographer used.

Today there are many real photo postcards of unknown origin and date. If the card is old and it is slightly smaller than 3. The address was to be written on the right side and the left side was for writing messages.

The postal rate was raised briefly from 1 cent to 2 cents in and in ; the conclusive raise to 2 cents was in They only needed to be fixed to preserve the exposed image. Other clues By the style of the era: All iron salt prints are contact printed.

Albumen prints are categorized by warm tones that should now have considerable yellowing.

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Chart courtesy of the2Buds. Postcards picturing sports subjects are highly popular in the sports hobby, and you can find examples picturing Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Red Grange and most of the big stars and teams.

The thin paper was also easy to cut and paste and pieces of these photos were commonly collaged into scrapbooks and sometimes pasted onto postcards. This too is not foolproof for many publishers had large stocks of photo papers using them for decades after they stopped being manufactured.