Carte de Visite. Photo of Jimmie to a Mrs. Carrie Hoagland. Circa 1870s.

Price:  $5.00        Size:  About 2 and 1/4 x 3 and 1/2″

A Carte de Visite photo from about the 1870s….of Jimmie to a Mrs. Carrie Hoagland. Just look at that beautiful handwriting! Jimmie, a nice-looking young man with a heartbreakingly sad expression, (awww, hugs) wears a suit coat with wide lapels, a white shirt and a short necktie, and looks to be about sixteen or so. Was this a school photo given to his teacher? Carrie, Caroline or Carolina Hoagland (Mrs.) – wow, there are far too many possibilities under this name. What might give us a clue is the second word that is scribbled over at the bottom – if anyone can decipher it! I came up with some crazy words that when Googling, were identified, for example, as a fictional place in the land of Mario Bros. (hee hee) or the name of a Brazilian steel tube maker (lordy). But it seems like it might be a last name, as the first word there looks like “Hannah.” And maybe it was written around the same time that Jimmie signed the card – the “H” is in the same style.