Part 2--Hunting for Cowboys and Indians

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.

Hunting for Cowboys and Indians—The Story Behind the Photos

About a year ago, at an indoor “yard sale” on a college campus in Worcester, MA., I bought these three photo postcards for very little money. (Can’t remember how much, but it was less than $20.)  They were: a sepia photo with the words “ancient Sioux Squaw” marked on the negative, a man dressed as a cowboy holding two snakes over the words “Rattlesnake Joe—Souvenir of the Fair”,  and a photograph of a white-haired man wearing a white shirt , vest and jacket, with no identification at all, but I guessed he was Native American and probably of importance, to be dressed in European style.

(Let me say up front that I understand the name “Indian” is offensive to Native Americans, because it’s not accurate, and even more offensive is the derogatory term “Squaw” for female Native Americans.   But I often have to use such words when researching antique photos in my collection, because they were used to identify 19^th century photos, since the terms were in common use at that time.)

I usually don’t collect postcards for several reasons:  I’m more interested in photos taken in the nineteenth century (the earliest photographs) and photos on postcards didn’t appear until the beginning of the twentieth century:  1903.  Also, postcard collectors number in the millions—it’s the third largest collectible hobby in the U.S.—and at ephemera auctions they buy boxes of hundreds of old postcards, which are worth pennies each.  I have no expertise in postcards and little patience for sorting through them, but I do know that authentic vintage photos concerning Native Americans and scenes of the Old West are always of greater value than most.  (By the way, if you find yourself in possession of a daguerreotype or any antique photograph of gold miners in California --or maybe an original image of Jesse James’ dead body, you can probably sell it to finance your retirement.)

Thus began my hunt to determine the identity and value of the three individuals in my “Western” postcards.  (As any collector will tell you, this is the fun part:  trying to track down the story behind your latest acquisition, hoping to find a nugget of gold amid all the pebbles and stones.)  Starting with the white-haired gent, I typed “Indian Chief” into Google.  (How did I live before the internet?  My life through high school, college and graduate school was one long trek from one library to another.). As soon as I clicked on Google Images, I said, “Bingo!  This is Geronimo!”

I had heard of Geronimo, of course, but never knew the fascinating story of his life.  Will try to sketch the highpoints. Geronimo was born June 1829. Became prominent leader and medicine man from Apache tribe.  1850 to 1886 joined fellows to carry out raids and resistance against U.S and Mexican military in Mexico and New Mexico. His fellow Apaches thought he had supernatural gifts, including foreknowledge. He had nine wives, the first one named Alope.  They had three children.  She and the children and Geronimo’s mother were all killed in a raid by Mexican soldiers in 1858.

In 1886, Geronimo surrendered to Lt Charles B. Gatewood, an Apache-speaking West Point graduate who had earned his respect.  He was a prisoner of War in Fort Bowie, Arizona, then exiled to Florida.  In his old age, Geronimo became a celebrity and appeared at World’s Fairs, including the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, where he sold souvenirs and photographs of himself and even buttons off his coat—sewing on new buttons overnight!  He died at the Fort Sill Hospital in 1909, at the age of 80, still a prisoner of war.

Convinced that my guy was Geronimo, I set the photos and research aside and recently came back to them, to write this blog post.  But in browsing, I came upon a photo of Sitting Bull and said, “Uh oh! He looks a lot like my Geronimo!”   Sitting Bull, a Lakota leader born about 1831, led his people during years of resistance to United States government policies.  Like Geronimo, he was believed by his people to have precognition—after he had a vision of his tribe achieving a great victory against Custer’s troops at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 (also known as Custer’s Last Stand.)  Here's Sitting Bull below.

Sitting Bull evaded capture by U.S. soldiers until 1881 when he and his band surrendered to U.S. Forces.  After that he worked as a performer with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, becoming, like Geronimo, famous and feared.

But did I have Geronimo or Sitting Bull?  (That's  three photos of Geronimo above.) I turned into my Nancy Drew Girl Detective persona and started raking the internet for photos of both men with white hair in their old age.  But it didn’t work. I couldn’t find an elderly, white-haired Sitting Bull.  Then I had a moment of illumination, went to the computer, and learned that Sitting Bull was shot to death by an Indian Agency policeman who was trying to arrest him on Dec. 15, 1890.  Sitting Bull was only 58 or 59—so he died before his braids turned white!

Then I began to study with a strong magnifying glass my photo of the white-haired gent. Looking very closely, I saw he had what seemed to be two large warts just below his left eye.  A clue!  So I went back to internet photos of Geronimo as he aged, and quickly learned that he had warts all right—a very prominent one, but it was on the fullest part of his right cheek.  It’s visible in many photos taken as he aged, including the wonderful portrait of him below, taken by Edward Curtis in 1905. Geronimo died at the age of 79. After he was thrown from his horse while riding home, and lay in the cold all night, he died of pneumonia on February 17, 1909, as a prisoner of the United States at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

So at this point in my detective story, I can’t claim a verified Geronimo Real Photo Post Card, which, according to the Price Guide of Stefano Neis would be worth $50 to$125.  (Check it out at  https://www.playle.com/realphoto/rpguide.php ). But I’m not giving up yet!

In my next blog post I’ll tell you what I discovered about my two other Western characters, as well as explaining how to tell when a postcard is a valuable  Real Photo Post Card (RPPC) or a nearly worthless printed postcard. And what you can learn from the blank back of a vintage postcard.  Stay tuned!