Valentine's Tasmanian Postcards

[Des_Beechey]

Valentine Publishing Company was a large postcard publisher based in Scotland. They published Tasmanian cards from about 1906.

You will have noticed on Valentine cards that there is usually a number on the front, beside the Valentine logo of JV in a circle. These are Valentines negative numbers. The Valentine collection of negatives, or 'Views' as they call them, is held by the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The View Registers, a collection of leather bound volumes, has been scanned and is available on the web, so 100 years later we can see what Tasmanian negatives they had available.

The negative numbers on Valentine's Tasmanian cards are in three groups:
48656-48689
53659-53676
300,000 onwards

Below is the start of the View Register entry for the 48656-48689 group. This shows the titles we are familiar with on Valentine cards, but the really interesting discovery is the note in the top right corner: "Henry W Grattan, 40 Brisbane St, Launceston. Prints" is shown as the source of the images.

View Registers.jpg (839.58 KiB) Viewed 1271 times

Grattan was a photographer in Launceston, who did general photography and published postcards. Did he send only his own photographs to Valentines, or did he gather up photographs from other photographers? Most of the views in the group are of northern Tasmania, and only the last nine are southern Tasmania, so I think we are fairly safe in saying that 48656-48680 were taken by Grattan.

If you would like the complete list of these Valentine cards they are on my web site at http://beecheyspostcardhistory.org.au

Des Beechey

[John Campton]

Great piece of sleuthing Des thanks for sharing.

[admin]

Most interesting. Well done!
Pete