Fishy Stamps

First I have a 1985 postcard from Greenland showing a stamp that was issued that year. The words at the top of the postcard and the stamp Kalaallit Nunaat mean "Land of the Greenlanders." Reinhardtius hippoglossoides is the name of the fish that is pictured, also known as the Greenland halibut or Greenland turbot. This is a deepwater fish mainly found in water with temperatures from 1-4 °C.

Greenland is an island that is located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. Physiographically it is a part of the continent of North America, but it is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark.

The back of the postcard has an address to write for further information about Greenland stamps. Now you can find information about Greenland stamps on the web at stamps.gl.

I received an envelope in the mail this week with a colorful fish stamp, so I scanned that too. This is a 39-cent stamp that was issued in 2006. It shows the Longest Reef (off the Florida Keys) and is one of the forty stamps on a sheet "Wonders of America: Land of Superlatives." The superlatives include natural and man-made wonders that are the longest, tallest, largest, fastest, etc. in the United States .

I am participating in Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

Union Pacific Railroad Postcards

Above is an oversize postcard describing some of the history of the Union Pacific Railroad (click the image to enlarge it to readable size). Below is a video slideshow I made with my Union Pacific Railroad postcards.

Little Girls

First I have an old postcard with a tinted photo of a little girl (at least I think it's a girl) and a cat. I don't know the age or the country of origin. The clothes are probably clues to the age. The bonnet is of a type I haven't seen before. On the back the words for postcard are printed in many languages.

Next is a tinted photo of me as a baby. My mother had a set of colors for tinting photos, but she seems to have used it only a couple of times. I'm not sure what I am holding--it looks like it could be the cap I am wearing in the next photo.

The photos below are ones that appear to have been taken during the same photo session by my father.

Visit Sepia Saturday for More Vintage Photos

Minnesota State Fair Crowds - Then & Now

The 1908 postcard above shows "some crowd" at the great Minnesota State Fair. Typical of that era, the fairgoers on the old postcard are dressed much more formally than those of today. A few of them are also carrying umbrellas for shade, which is something you are not likely to see nowadays.

Below is a new crowd postcard from the 2011 Minnesota State Fair.

The 2011 postcard has images of Fairborne hidden in the crowd à la "Where's Waldo." Printing on the back asks "Can you spot the '7' Fairbournes [sic] enjoying the fair?" I found and circled 6 small Fairbornes in the crowd. I think the large one in front is probably the 7th.

Fairborne is one of two anthropomorphic gopher mascots of the fair. The other mascot is his uncle Fairchild.

A similar theme was used on a Minnesota State Fair postcard a few years ago. Fairborne is spelled correctly on that postcard.

Gadsden Purchase 1853

This is a maximum card with the stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1853 Gadsden Purchase. The stamp is canceled on the first day of issue in Tucson, Arizona on December 30, 1953.

The Gadsden Purchase was a 29,670-square-mile area of land purchased from Mexico. The region later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. The purchase treaty was signed by James Gadsden who was the American ambassador to Mexico. This purchase was the last major territorial acquisition in the contiguous United States. The purpose of the purchase was to allow the construction in the U.S. of a transcontinental railroad along a deep southern route.

The stamp design features a scene showing pioneers in their ox-drawn covered wagon. The design includes shrubs and cactus plants native to that area. The scene is set against a background (in the "sky") of a map of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The Gadsden Purchase is the white area on the map.

I am participating in Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

Ranch Store, Kadoka, South Dakota

I chose this postcard of the Ranch Store for Sepia Saturday 89 because of the "groceries" sign in the window. It is one of my favorite roadside cards. It is a nicely photographed view and has some interesting signs and old 1950s cars. The following description is from the back of the card:

The "Ranch Store," is an unusual building on Highway 16 at Kadoka, South Dakota, Gateway to the Badlands. This is a good place for visitors to see many FREE attractions, a natural prairie dog town, rattlesnakes, a zoo, free cactus and mail service.
Originated, owned and operated by Doris and Emory Herring

This postcard was originally published in 1958. Surprisingly, the store has not changed too much since then. It still has a bull on the roof and a painted prairie dog on the side wall. There are quite a few recent pictures on the web. The location is now listed as Cactus Flats, a small unincorporated area near Kadoka. The store no longer has a "groceries" sign. It is more of a gift shop now, and a giant prairie dog statue seems to be the main attraction. The photo below is from 2005 and is by Brian Butko.

According to a death notice in the Black Hills State University Alumni Magazine Spring 2005 issue, Emory Herring operated this store for 17 summers. Emory Herring died in 2004, and Doris Herring died in 2006.

Visit Sepia Saturday for More Vintage Photos

G. A. R. Parade, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1906

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was an organization composed of veterans of the Union Army who served in the American Civil War. It was founded in 1866 and was dissolved in 1956 when its last member died. The GAR became one of the first organized advocacy groups in American politics, supporting voting rights for black veterans, lobbying the US Congress to establish veterans' pensions, and supporting Republican political candidates. Its peak of membership at more than 400,000 was in 1890. National encampments were held annually for 83 years, the last one being in 1949.

The 40th National Encampment of the Grand Army or the Republic was held in Minneapolis in 1906. The postcards above show two views of 1906 GAR parade. An article in the Minneapolis Tribune on August 16, 1906 reported that 16,000 men representing G. A. R. eagerly participated in "one of the greatest parades ever seen at annual encampment." The parade included 29 bands and 32 drum corps and took 3 hours and 20 minutes to pass a given point. Parade Day was a municipal holiday in Minneapolis, and thousands packed the streets to pay homage to the "heroes of '61."

A newspaper article on August 17 claimed that it was the unanimous opinion of Grand Army men then in Minneapolis, that the annual parade of the veteran soldiers be discontinued because it strained the endurance of the old soldiers. However the GAR parades continued for 30 more years.

A 1936 article in Time magazine described that year's parade (which was supposed to be the last parade) as follows:

The Grand Army which tottered down six blocks of Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue at its 70th Encampment last week was a sentimental relic which, by Death and the dimming of old passions, had been stripped of political power for a generation. Of the 355 parading oldsters, whose average age was 92, only 170 crickety survivors of the mighty march of 1883 were able to hobble along at a funeral pace under their own power. The rest rode in automobiles.

The 1937 encampment was held in Madison, Wisconsin. At the 1937 Encampment, 192 veterans attended the proceedings, and 122 hardy Grand Army veterans marched around the Capitol Square.

The last surviving member of the Grand Old Army was Albert Woolson of Duluth, Minnesota. He died on August 2, 1956 at the age of 109. He had gone to war as a drummer boy when he was 17.