Beautiful Barrie
Private Post Card
Postmarked with Barrie, Ontario July 26 1895 CDS
on a 1¢ Small Queen no. 35 stamp
mailed to Gravenhurst, Ontario.
Below, reverse of card
with partial Gravenhurst receiver
In the Business and Professional Directory of All Cities in Ontario, 1899-1900, the company was know as The Grip Printing & Publishing Co. of Toronto Ltd., George A. Howell, manager. In the 1903 Toronto Directory, the company was known as Grip Limited, Engravers. The address remain the same; they are listed as a tenant in the Saturday Night Building at 26-28 Adelaide Street West, along with 34 people who identified themselves as employees of the firm.
It is interesting to note that Grip was the firm where a number of the Group of Seven worked to earn their living while they painted as their hobby. MacDonald, Varley, Johnston, Carmichael, Lismer and the contemporary, Tom Thomson all worked at Grip.
Below, a detail of the card showing the publisher
GRIP Co., Engs, Toronto, Canada
Below, detail of stamp & cancellation
Allan Steinhart shows the same postcard mailed one month earlier in his book The Postal History of the Post Card in Canada.
This postcard was also used for advertising purposes, both as a postcard with the front similar to above, but an ad on the back, and with ad copy on the front and back, and therefore no longer usable as a post card (see below for images from a listing on eBay in August of 2010).
