Divided back, unused postcard. Phototypie by Marcel Delboy, Bordeaux, France. Series or number 46. Circa mid – late 1910s.

Price:  $15.00

It’s always exciting to find a card like this – filled, or nearly so, with words. You know it meant something to the person that wrote it – it was not a casual thing. (And for us, the reader – anticipation, often resulting in…..delight!)  This one is pretty special:

“A fish woman merchant. It is remarkable how there old women will balance and carry great heavy loads. They are always women – never have seen any men. One day I was walking on the road at a good pace one of these women with a basket like this on her head overtook and passed me. There was a tin can in the centre of the basket which looked like a milk can but whether full or empty I can’t say of course. On each side of the can was a live duck with their necks stretched out over the edge of the basket looking this way and that way evidently enjoying the scenery as much as any one would in a “rubber neck wagon.”

The term phototypie that appears before the photographer (or printer’s) name is, in English, collotype.

Source:  Collotype. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collotype (accessed May 3, 2020).