Below are links to various postcard series that I have collected. Numbered cards are convenient because they give the collector an idea of range. Unfortunately not all series of cards have card numbers and not all of the cards in a numbered series have numbers. So short of a master list showing up from an early photographer or postcard publisher, collectors from this area for the most part will never really know for sure what is out there...
Anyone happening upon this site who cares to contact me regarding some of the "missing cards", I am always happy to hear from you and would gladly add an image to the "checklist". My email address is... park2@netsync.net. I am most curious to find out where the cards are from that would fill in a few of the empty blocks of numbers in these lists.
As time and desire permits, I hope to add more to this section as well as better define terms and such. For now I am just experimenting with the site.
I initially started refering to cards of this series as "White Number" cards (even though all the numbers aren't white...). Later I started calling them Ketchum cards because the early undivided back cards (in New York State anyways) have the striking sketch of Chautauqua Lake on the address side with the words "COPYRIGHT 1906 BY EVERETT H. KETCHUM, JAMESTOWN N.Y." above it. I later started questioning the naming as I noticed that many of the lower numbered undivided back cards have George H. Monroe as publisher on the back. I have also noticed that most of the higher numbered cards have no publisher on back. Most of these higher numbered divided back cards also have settled on the type card with the words POST CARD in hollow text (the lower numbered cards had a varity of backs). Then to add to the fun, some of the higher number hollow text cards have E.H. Ketchum printed on the back, but none of them that I have seen have George H. Monroe.
In my pursuit of this series, I have found that they stray a bit from the greater Jamestown / Chautauqua Lake New York area. I found myself picking up postcards in this series from nearby Pennsylvania (I have a Warren PA School card that was published by E.H. Ketchum). I have also found not so nearby Meadville and North East PA in the series. At this time there are cards from the Pennsylvania counties of Warren, Erie, Venango, McKean and Crawford. The New York State cards from this series are from Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties.
The presence of duplicate numbers on different cards has added to the puzzle. One would hope that maybe the Pennsylvania cards were one group of numbers and the New York another. As stated, I do have a Warren PA card published by Ketchum whose name appears on many of the earlier New York State cards from this series, so forget about the state difference idea.
Until my collecting shows different, I will assume that there was just nothing fixed regarding the numbering system. Duplicate numbers could have been issued when an earlier image fell out of favor. Printers, publishers and photographers may not have been all that good at keeping track of the numbers either. Time may tell...
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