Wednesday 6 October 2021

It's very draughty

Unsigned, but definitely McGill cards, at first glance they appear to be the same ... but look closer and the differences begin to become apparent.


Overall the colours are different, the text uses different fonts, and there are little detail variations such as the spots in the hatband and the stones outlined on the ground. The more you look the more you see. One is a copy of the other, not an exact copy but not far off. 

Here are the reverse of the cards:


One is very obviously published by Joseph Asher & Co., printed in Belgium (which is slightly unusual) and is numbered A 86. However, the other card is also numbered A 86 but there are no publisher details and is printed in Holland. It is not unusual to find Asher cards which have been printed without publisher details and with only the printing origin and the card number, many of their cards were printed in Holland.

Were these both published by Joseph Asher? My gut reaction is that they were but I can't explain why the image is different on each card. Perhaps I'm wrong and one is a particularly good copy of the Joseph Asher original.

Another possible cause for the differences may be due to the printing processes used by different print companies.

Saturday 3 July 2021

Katoomba Copies

In some previous posts I've shown how McGill's cards produced for the publishers E.S. were copied by another publishing company - E.L.P. Co - in the early 1900s.

I have come across another instance of this happening much later and on a different continent. Green's Souvenirs of Katoomba, New South Wales in Australia have copied several of McGill's cards - having them redrawn with some slight variations by an unknown artist. 




Inter-Art and Constance originals have been used but in what seems a random selection. I have no idea how many they produced but these are the five examples I've found so far. I'm guessing they date from the 1950s as none of them are postmarked.

Greens G39
Constance 689



Greens G41
  
Inter-Art 7858

Greens G43
 
Inter-Art 7651




Greens G44

Constance 428


Greens G48


Constance 1038