Oh, I love old postcards — especially when they are as crazy-wrong as this one.
Just study that image for a bit. What we have here is what seems to be a solid-gold, two-masted, four-stack ocean liner cruising down the Mississippi River at Memphis. In the background aren't high bluffs, as you might expect (on the Tennessee side) or open fields (on the Arkansas side). Instead, though it's hard to really tell, the far shore seems to have wharves and docks sticking out into a body of water that is unquestionably blue.
What the heck is going on here?
The message on the back has somebody named Pop writing to somebody named Miss Ruth Hirschfield in Shelburn, Indiana. The card is dated January 8, 1911, and he has written in pencil, "Arrived here OK are going on this evening will write more when I get time."
Now I can see "Pop" wandering around Memphis for a bit, before he "goes on," and picking up this really fancy postcard at a store somewhere, to mail back home. Or maybe he was sending it to a friend. How could he resist it? Not only are the colors quite lovely, but the message "Just Leaving From Memphis, Tenn." is actually applied to the card with gold glitter, and — oh, the crowning touch — that boat isn't printed on the card. It's actually stamped from a piece of gold-color metal and attached with two pins.
This was probably an expensive card, in its day.
Just one problem: The artists and illustrators who worked at the company that published this card (and there's no name printed on the front or back) had obviously never been to Memphis. This was apparently a stock-image card (in fact, there's a design number 9595 printed very small in the top corner). They gave it to their workers to apply "Just Leaving from ________" and they could fill in any city or town they wanted. The boat — which is obviously not a riverboat — was also a stock item applied to the card.
What's interesting, too, is that the card has no postage stamp, and looking carefully at it, I can find no trace that one was ever applied (no evidence of glue or paper). I wonder if "Pop" ever mailed it? Where did he go after leaving Memphis? And what ever happened to Miss Hirshfield of Shelburn, Indiana?
So many stories on such a small bit of cardboard ...
