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How Most Early Colour Postcards Were Made

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    Posted 9 years ago

    SpiritBear
    (813 items)

    This seems to be one of my scarcer Muskegon postcards. Bear Lake is one of our many lakes. I've not swum in it (yet,) but it used to be popular well back in the day, such as seen here in this 1911 postcard.

    Photochromes were images done on lithographic limestone with disolved asphalt (bitumen) on them, which is light-sensitive. A man then, basically, takes a negative of a photo and presses it onto the stone in daylight, where differences in lighting causes the bitumen to harden in areas accordingly; excess is removed.
    Every different shade or colour in one of these was done on a different stone, with touch-up work done after every round.
    This one went through about 12.

    This is why many early postcards have uncolorised portions: The workers just didn't wanna do it.

    Technically these are, typically, real photos. But they're colourised and identified by many little dots that make up their colours, versus hand-tinting the piece itself. It could take several hours to do, depending on temperature.

    We can blame the Detroit Photographic Co. for using this 1880s Swedish method, which is more complicated than I've explained, to make a simple postcard. These began to be seen as postcards in 1898.

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    Comments

    1. blunderbuss2 blunderbuss2, 9 years ago
      BB2 was here.
    2. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      Only for the ladies in the canoe, right? :P
    3. blunderbuss2 blunderbuss2, 9 years ago
      Have to change those hair styles 1st !
    4. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      Shh, you'll insult them!
    5. SEAN68 SEAN68, 9 years ago
      were neighbors!! im in Wisconsin!!
    6. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      Awesome! Where at?
    7. SEAN68 SEAN68, 9 years ago
      APPLETON,WI
    8. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      I've not been there, albeit I've been to a few cities your way.
    9. SEAN68 SEAN68, 9 years ago
      its called the fox cities /fox valley area , im 23 miles away from Green Bay :)
    10. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      Been to Green Bay. Should have been around 2010.
    11. NevadaBlades, 9 years ago
      Thanks for sharing your expertise! Fascinating stuff!
    12. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      I'm far from expert, but the C.W. write-up on these didn't explain much and seems to suggest they came out much later than they did.
      Thanks for the comment.
    13. NevadaBlades, 9 years ago
      You're too modest, Spirit! [;>)
    14. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      Just honest. :P
    15. antiquerose antiquerose, 9 years ago
      Thanks for the post -- When I saw this, it reminded me of my PIANO COURSE I took when I was about 10 years old ( Leila Fletcher Piano Book ) and " Little Birch Canoe" was one of the songs I first learned to play -- and could play without looking at the notes in the book. Hey I 10 years old....

      Here is that version -- the page is the same, the notes are the same...but they did a twist on it

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCI2XP4kcSo

      Goes well with your Picture !!!
    16. SpiritBear, 9 years ago
      I was expecting some light, fresh melody. LOL.
      The piece you posted fits much better into my typical music tastes, which are Hard Rock and, especially, Heavy Metal.
      I do admit to being a lover of Classical pieces, though.

      I can hardly play a guitar. I knew two songs on electric keyboard years ago.

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