@Robert S. Butler posted:Sure thing NJCJOE....How about
The Case of the Disappearing Passengers
One area of railroadiana which doesn't get much attention is postcards from the past focused on various aspects of the real railroads.
I discovered some time ago that Fred Harvey of Harvey House fame had a series of postcards featuring things like Santa Fe railroad stations associated with the Harvey Houses. With one exception I've managed to get a period postcard for each of the stations that had an associated Harvey House. In most cases the cards have printed on the back "Fred Harvey trademark" or something similar.
Based on what I've found a company named Phostint did a lot of the Harvey cards and also turned out cards with what I think are Fred Harvey numeric identifiers on the front but without a Fred Harvey trademark on the back.
In the course of looking for a Harvey/Phostint card of the old Los Angeles Station complex I found the following card.
Card #1
It is a Phostint card and it has a numeric identifier in the lower left hand corner but it does not have a Fred Harvey trademark on the back. The price was right and the card was in good shape so I went ahead and bought it - if I ever find this card (or one featuring the same station) with the Fred Harvey trademark I'll get that as well.
A couple of weeks ago the following card showed up and I bought it. It is obviously the same picture but as you can see the passengers had gone into the station .... or had they?
Card #2
Detail of card #1 - passengers on their way
Detail of card #2 - the ghosts of passengers past
Obviously, Phostint wanted to keep selling the Los Angeles station but time had passed and the passengers gave the picture a dated look ...so I guess it was the 1920's version of Photoshop to the rescue.
Am I allowed to share rail post cards and the like? I know we have some pretty appropriately strict copyright concerns on this forum. Powers to be, what say you?
