This vintage real photo postcard features an Indian man selling coconuts out of a basket at a market in India. He is holding a coconut on his knee while he intensely stares at the camera. The postcard was published by Thacker & Company which was located in Bombay, India. The card is part of a series (No. 57) and was manufactured in Great Britain. To learn more about Thacker & Co. and to view more of their Indian postcards, search for “Thacker” in the cabinet card gallery’s search box.
This is a very interesting vintage real photo postcard that gives us a look at a young boy selling his wares on a street somewhere in India. Note that the lad is barefoot on a stone paved street. Ouch! The young entrepreneur is selling Wellington knife polish. He also has a hanger holding some type of material. I can not identify the item and hopefully a cabinet card gallery visitor can shed some light on the matter. I can tell you a little bit about the knife polish that is for sale on this Indian street. John Oakey (1813-1887) was an inventor and he established a company (John Oakey & Sons Ltd) which manufactured sandpaper and other polishing materials. Oakey began his interest in sandpaper while working as a piano maker. He then set up a manufacturing business in London in 1833. He later moved the business to Wellington Mill. Among his products was Wellington Knife Polish. See second scan below for a photograph of an antique can of Oakey’s knife polish. Advertising for this product was commonly seen on buses and trams in the early 1900’s. His sons took over the company after his death and took it public in 1893. This postcard was published by Thacker & Company of Bombay, India and manufactured in Great Britain. . It was part of a series (#122). Thacker, Spink, & Company (1853-1960) was a major Indian book publisher of literature guides, history and almanacs. They were also an early publisher of photo postcards. They had a distribution office in London, England.
Thomas Friedman’s best selling book “The World is Flat” was published in 2005. This cabinet card photograph demonstrates that the world has been flat for a number of centuries. This image features a Portuguese family and their maid, posing for their portrait in Bombay, India. It is likely that their maid is Indian, given their location at the time of the photograph. The family consists of parents and their three sons. Five first names are written on the reverse of the cabinet card, but they can not be listed, because of legibility and language barriers. The photograph is dated 1888. The photographer is Joseph D. Coutinho of Bombay, India.
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