The Garden Grill Room

A lovely postcard from the famous postcard publishers; Tuck’s. This one is of The Garden Grill Room at the May Fair Hotel in London. The card has a texture that makes it appear to be an oil painting. It seems that this postcard was quite popular. The May Fair is still there and was recently modernised. Any one for tea?

Hotel Scribe

Would you believe that the hotel is almost the same today? Only the traffic has changed.

 I expect you’d like to look around it too – you can!
(Scroll down a little - there is a video)

Hotel Brighton and much more

 A great number of large hotels were built along the broadwalk at Atlantic city in the late 19th century. The Hotel Brighton was one of the many hotels demolished in the 70s and 80s.

This is a postcard that I can get my teeth into. Why is it marked “Private Mailing Card” and what was the act of Congress of May 19 1898?

 The act of congress allowed postcards to be sent in the post at the lower rate of 1c instead of 2c like a letter. “Private Mailing Card” meant that the postcard was produced by a private publisher rather than the United States Postal Service. Many cards were marked “Postal Card – Carte Postale” which meant that they could enter the international system.

 Because the postcard was sent to France in 1901, the stamp is a 2c commemoration stamp,  marked “Fast Express”, worth about $2 today – if you’re lucky!

 Information about the postal system comes from the Smithsonian Institute website

Who's that girl?

A little before October 1909 a photographer set out to take a picture of the ‘Grand Hôtel du Parc’. Some passers by were caught on camera including a pretty young lady. She was pretty enough to turn the head of a young man and make him smile( seen with a powerful magnifying glass).



What happened next?

Is it or isn't it?

As you are probably aware I spend as much time looking at the back of our postcards as I do looking at the picture at the front. The signature on the front of this card caught my eye – could it really be?….

Rob spent ages trawling the internet to find documents which were actually signed by Alfred Dreyfus. There were plenty of documents about him – he was wrongly accused of treason in the late 19th century. His main crime was being Jewish and from Alsace (There are certain regions of France where the people weren’t considered really French). He later served for his country during the first world war and received the legion of Honour.

We think that it might just be his signature and so we’ve put the card up for auction on ebay in the autograph department. The card itself announces the opening or the Palace Hotel in “French Brighton” at Cayeux-sur-Mer.

I'll let you know what happens next.