26.00 USD
Absolutely wonderful panoramic lens RPPC of a Ste. Catherine's Day Fete, circa (we have to guess here) about 1905. The early panoramic lens was usually not quite up to the standards of the modern fish-eye lens, offering the turn of the century photographer something closer to a 150 degree angle. Still, as we see here, even lesser versions were great for large, indoor, group portraits.
"Rare" postcards? Like any collectible, there are certainly some very hard to come across postcards, but it is difficult to apply the term rare to many cards produced by the major European or American printers of the early 1900s. Certainly the printing runs were limited by comparison to today's "mass production" standards though, and reproductions aside, when speaking of vintage postcards, the phrase, "Buy land. They ain’t making any more of it" (often attributed to either Will Rogers or Mark Twain), easily applies :)
However, if there is one category of vintage postcards for which the term "rare" is almost always an accurate one, it is that of the "Real Photo Postcard," or RPPC.
Even though most of the postcards in our shop are "real photographs" printed on postcard stock, and so technically "real photo postcards," RPPCs (in the generally accepted meaning of the term), were photographic prints produced on postcard stock by home photographers, or independent studios, in extremely limited runs.
In fact, at about the time this image was produced, Kodak offered an RPPC ready camera to the home photographer, that used postcard stock sized negative plates, ready to be developed on pre-printed Kodak AZO postcard stock! Just think. Take a holiday image of the family, develop it out in the shed, and the next day, stick a stamp on it, and mail it off to good ol' Uncle Fred! That's about as close to uploading a digital image as they were going to get :)
In this instance, it is possible (though unlikely) that every single attendee of this fete received one of these RPPCs as a souvenir, who knows? But it was certainly not a "commercially" produced image, and given the ravages of time in general, and two devastating world wars in between, it is just as likely that no more than this single card survived the intervening years. Rare, indeed.
In France, Ste. Catherine is the patron saint of unmarried women. According to Wikipedia, in order to qualify as a Catherinette, and attend our lttle fete, you would need to have reached the ripe old age of 25 without marrying.
On St. Catherine's day, Catherinettes would send postcard greetings of women in fantastic hats to one another, wear amusing hats themselves, bonnets or turbans, throughout the entire day, often in the colors yellow, or green, or both, (symbolizing patience and faith, virtues which, come to think of it, one can put to use when one IS married too, sigh. :)), and set off sparkly wheels of fireworks. Look up St Catherine's Day for further information!
Saint Catherine might as well have been the patron saint of milliners too, considering the number of hats they sold to Catherinettes. In the past, there would be milliner's parades on her day, showing off their fanciful offerings! And....well...yes! POSTCARD dealers might thank Ste. Catherine too!
In this image, our ladies are wearing bonnets decorated with flowers, but not anything particularly wild. In the Wikipedia article on Ste. Catherine's Day, there is a great image of two Catherinettes wearing really crazy hats!. Is that a biplane? We included that image for your pleasure, though *Not For Sale*.We imagine that the flowers on our celebrant's bonnets are yellow petaled. By the way, Ste. Catherine's Day is the 25th of November, so coming soon!
***Note*** There are a couple of men wearing fancy hats and attending this fete, as well!
Please examine our high res scans for detail.
Postage is for first class shipping in a secure photo mailer, and we happily combine shipping on all paper goods. If you purchase two cards, we will refund the postage on the second card, and when you purchase three or more cards from us at the same time, your shipping will be entirely free, except for international orders which, because of sudden increases in international shipping rates will still be charged one card's shipping fees on orders of three or more.
And please come visit our blog at:
redpoulaine.blogspot.com
where we post biographical and historical tidbits, images of cards and photographs for sale, some already sold but remembered fondly, related images of historical interest and sometimes even images of items that have not yet arrived in the shop, but that are expected to arrive soon, as well as coupon codes, links to other related sites, and more!