• Business,  Katheryn McMahon Newton Album,  Social

    A great coaling station

    Katheryn McMahon Newton album, cards 60-63 First a card from Europe without a message–or is there one after all? This card, by the way, I do not think comes from Billy. Based on the handwriting, there were at least two people in Europe sending postcards back to one or another Miss McMahon in Chicago. (They may have traveled together–the lack of information leaves that a possibility.) Given the absence of an explicit message, what might the implicit message(s) be? For one, that the sender is/was alive and well on the date when the card was sent. But what about the image and poem on the front? The image I don’t…

  • Business,  Katheryn McMahon Newton Album,  Logistics,  Social,  Travel,  Weather

    Good Company and Weather; Bad Connections and Mail

    Katheryn McMahon Newton Album, cards 25-26 This first card is not in particularly good condition. There’s a notable fold down the middle–almost a tear. Most of the cards from the album are in better shape, so my guess is that this card got bent when being mailed from Seattle to Chicago. When it happened doesn’t really matter–it’s unlikely to make a difference in any particular way except that the notable damage would likely reduce the price were it to be sold on it’s own. Then again, as with so many of these cards, their value is not so much in the images as their contents–particularly their collected contents. The image…

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