On Weds., Oct, 30, I published my first post about investigating three
Western-themed vintage Real Photo Postcards:"Hunting for Cowboys and Indians-- Part 1".
In the post, I told how I tried (but
never quite succeeded) to confirm that the white -haired gentleman above was a
valuable image of Geronimo (or was it Sitting Bull?)
Now I've turned my attention to the
postcard of a man in a cowboy hat and leather chaps holding two very large
snakes. It's labelled “Rattlesnake
Joe, Souvenir of the Fair”. (I’m no expert on snakes, but I knew those snakes
he had wrapped around himself were not rattlesnakes—more likely boa
constrictors.) Thanks to this identification, I thought it would be easy to
track down the career and importance of “Rattlesnake Joe” and to find out if
he, like Geronimo, was on exhibit at the famous 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
It wasn’t that easy, after all, to
connect Rattlesnake Joe to the St. Louis World’s Fair, but I did find through
Google this great photo—it’s a 5 by 7 glass negative in the collection of the
Library of Congress, with “no known restrictions on publication”. As you can see, someone has written on the
glass negative “Westchester Co. Fair Midway 7-89-15”. I can’t figure out if those numbers are meant
to be a date, but online I found another view of this image—with those same
numbers-- and it’s been labeled “Westchester County Fair 1915.”
I love everything about this image:
“Beautiful Mermaid Captured Alive”, “Reptile Joe, the King of the Reptile World”,
and most of all the overhead sign saying, “Wild Rose & Rattlesnake
Joe”. I was happy to see that Joe had a
lovely partner in his snake-charming act. The man with the big snake standing
on the platform does seem to resemble my Rattlesnake Joe on the postcard, but
in less flashy clothes. The man next to him with the megaphone is clearly
advertising Joe to the crowd, but the man on the ground in the business suit,
who appears to be holding a small snake, has drawn the attention of some of the
gawking young boys. (Is he holding an actual rattlesnake? Is he challenging Joe?)
With a little more detective work I
discovered that a contemporary artist named Mike Savad has colorized this
iconic image of a Fair Midway with all its excitement and drama (above). I think he did a brilliant job of adding
color to the innate drama of the scene. And he’s selling prints of his
colorized work on his website, MikeSavad.com and fineartamerica.com.
My enthusiasm about my Rattlesnake
Joe postcard dwindled a bit when I tested my three vintage postcards to find
out if they were Real Photos. I knew
that Real Photo Post Cards (RPPCs) are far more valuable than postcards that
are printed-- like magazine and newspaper images. I had read that in 1902, Kodak came out with
a preprinted post card photo paper back that allowed postcards to be made
directly from negatives, but a negative would only allow a limited number of
prints, while standard printing methods
can be produced in huge numbers.
According to “Old House Journal”,
“This technology allowed photographers to travel from town to town and document
life in the places they visited….Real Photo Postcards became expressions of
pride in home and community and were sold as souvenirs in local drug stores and
stationary shops.”
I also learned that the best way to
tell if you’re holding a Real Photo Postcard or a printed one is to look at the
image through a magnifying glass. If
it’s a real photo, the image is solid, but if it’s not a real photo, the
magnified image immediately dissolves into thousands of tiny dots—just like
images in the newspaper or magazines.
Sadly, Rattlesnake Joe failed this
test as soon as I got out my magnifying glass!
My other two “Western” images—my (I think) Geronimo and the “Ancient
Squaw” both passed with flying colors—the shades of sepia (the Sioux Matriarch)
and gray (Geronimo) fading into each other without dissolving into dots.
I was disappointed that Rattlesnake
Joe didn’t pass the test, and was starting to suspect that he wasn’t any more
“Western” than I am. But I did find a duplicate of my Rattlesnake Joe card for
sale on Ebay—in worse condition than mine—for sale from “The Postcard Dude”
selling for $12.57, which is more than the dollar or so that I thought it was
worth. The “Ancient Sioux Squaw” (I love
her beaded necklaces and the feathered stick she’s holding) and the Geronimo
RPPC could be worth many times Rattlesnake Joe.
I learned that the back of a
postcard can also hold information about the age and maker of a postcard—even
if it’s blank. Check the printed “box”
where the stamp is supposed to go and look up the words and design on line at
“Playe’s Real Photo Stamp Boxes”. The
stamp box of the “Geronimo” postcard below shows “Noko” is the maker, and if
you look on Playe’s, you see that particular design was used between 1907 and
1934.
If there’s no name on the back, but
just a design, as in the Rattlesnake Joe card below, you can go to “Playle’s Real Photo Postcard Stamp Backs” on
line, which I did, but this design was
not there (because, as I learned, it’s NOT a real photo!)
The back of the “Ancient Sioux
Squaw” post card, below, had the most information.
First I looked up on Playle’s the particular KRUXO stamp box design and
learned it was used by the manufacturer
between 1908 and 1910. Then I googled
the name of the photographer on the side: “Real Photograph by Holmboe &
White, New Salem, N. D.”
I learned that Frithjof Holmboe was
born in Norway in 1879 and immigrated to Minnesota (just like my paternal
grandmother). He became a photographer
and opened his first studio in New Salem, North Dakota in 1907. Two years later he moved it to Bismarck, N.D.
and became the state’s official photographer.
So that tells us that the “Ancient Sioux Squaw” was photographed between
1907 and 1909.
Despite the fact that my three “Western” photo postcards will not make me rich, I enjoyed learning the stories behind these
images and exploring a different branch of photography that took
the newborn art of the camera out of the photographer’s studio and into our
expanding country’s early history.
