This vintage real photo postcard is quite unusual. The photograph preserves a time when it was fashionable to accessorize hats with real birds.This style hat is not one of my favorite examples of millinery design. At the turn of the 19th century it became the style in the US and Europe to wear feathers and even whole taxidermied birds on their hats. This resulted in the killing of millions of birds all around the world. An article in “Sociological Images” (2014) reports on a single order of feathers by a London dealer in 1892 requiring the “harvesting” of 6,000 Birds of Paradise, 40,000 Hummingbirds, and 360,00 of various East Indian birds. Ornithologists started to speak out in resistance to this practice. One asserted that 67 types of birds were at risk for extinction. Ornithologists and their supporters began to target women who were supporting the practice of slaughtering birds. Women were receiving the blame for the barbarism being committed against birds. The writer, Virginia Woolf (1882-1942) reminded readers that it was men who were actually murdering the birds and making a profit from them. Interestingly, middle class women were major advocates in the bird preservation movement. In the US the movement sparked the development of the first Audubon societies. The Massachusetts Audubon Society organized a feather boycott, and soon the US government passed conservation legislation that protected the birdsThis style hat is not one of my favorite examples of millinery design. This postcard has a stamp box that I have not seen before. Apparently, the postcard is part of a series (# k 519). Google translate indicates that the words in the stamp box, “Echte Foto” are in Dutch and that they can be translated as meaning “Real Photo”. This postcard is in very good condition (see scans). (SOLD)
This vintage real photo postcard features actress “Miss Mary Grey”. A search for biographical information about Miss Grey was not very fruitful. It should be noted that postcard portraits of Mary Grey are rare. Only one other postcard image of Miss Grey could be found, and it was a different pose than the one above. I found a morsel of information about one actress named Mary Grey but I can not verify that the Mary Grey seen in this postcard is the same Mary Grey that I am about to describe. Mary Grey was an actress known for her appearance in the British musical film”His Majesty and Co” (1935). She was married twice. Her first husband was James Bernard Fagan, an Irish-born actor, theater manager,producer and playwright in England. 
This vintage trade card is from an interesting time in American medicine. The product advertised in “Dr Wm. Hall’s Balsam for the Lungs”. This product was advertised as curing consumption, colds, asthma, whooping cough, and other pulmonary diseases. The front of the card features a patient and his wife and a house visiting doctor. The patient raves about the medicines effectiveness and the doctor responds that he has never seen Hall’s Balsam fail a patient. The reverse of the trade card has a printed testimonial from a consumption patient who experienced a Balsam cure. The testimonial is entitled “Rescued from Death”. Sounds like a miracle drug but it was really a product used by “quack” medical practitioners. This type of trade card is called a “metamorphic card” because it sets up a scenario that highlights positive change in health as a result of using the potion. The product was produced by John F. Henry & Company. It made its medical debut in 1860. SOLD
