Has it ever occurred to you?

It wasn't long after I starting collecting McGill cards that I began to come across cards that looked like his but weren't signed by him. Some of them looked almost exactly the same as a signed card I had in my collection often with the same caption although not always.

"Almost exactly the same" being the operative phrase. Closer inspection showed these were very clever copies. Some better than others.

Were they copies by other artists? Had McGill redrawn the same image but slightly differently for another publisher?

In some cases it's fairly obvious these are copies by another hand ... but there are some that keep you wondering!

E.S. 2007	I have two copies of this card. Neither has any publisher information. One is numbered "636 B",  the other just says "Printed in Germany"
E.S. 2019 (Postmarked 1908)	(Postmarked 1911) No publisher information. It just says "Printed in Germany"
E.S. 111 (Postmarked 1906) This is the earliest of three versions of this card produced by McGill	E.L.P. Co. Series (Postmarked 1913)
E.S. 86 (Postmarked 1906)	E.L.P. Co. Series

There does appear to be a pattern emerging here. It looks like the E.L.P Co. were copying the cards published by E.S. I have a number of other examples which I shall post at a later date. Was this some sort of contractual arrangement between the two companies or just a case of E.L.P. not bothering to be original and trying to take advantage of McGill's success?

Some of the above cards by McGill do say "Copyright" on the reverse but that doesn't seem to have stopped the blatant copying. It's obvious that copyright was not upheld very vigorously for postcards back in Edwardian times.