Toronto Litho Canadian Sports Series

TorLithoFootball
An unused copy of Toronto Litho's Canadian Sports Series has been added, illustrating the port of football.

Toronto Litho Canadian Sports Series

TorLithoBaseball
Another card has been added from Toronto Litho's Canadian Sports Series. Click on the card image to see more.

Toronto Litho Canadian Sports Series

TorLithoWheeling
Another card from Toronto Litho's Canadian Sports Series has been added, showing the two activities of bathing & wheeling. The card has been written on, but not postally used.

Toronto Litho Canadian Cities Series Business Use

TorLithoDomExB
An example of Toronto Litho’s Canadian Cities Series showing vignettes of Montreal has been added. This card has been used by Dominion Express Company for advertising delivery of Christmas packages at rates superior to those of registered mail.

Toronto Litho Warships Christmas use

TorLithoNympheXmas
A very nice used example of Toronto Litho’s pioneer patriotic series featuring ships of war of the Boer War era, in this case the Nymphe sloop. has been added. This card bear’s the company’s Christmas Greeting on the front, with the address and a 1¢ Jubilee + 1¢ QV Numeral stamp cancelled December 26, 1899, paying postage to England on the back.

Toronto Litho Christmas Greetings

MontrealXMasBackB
I’ve added another example of Toronto Litho’s Canadian Cities Series postcards with a reduced size version of their Christmas & New Year’s greeting on the reverse. Although unused, this particular card design dates from between 1898 and 1900.

Toronto Litho Christmas Greetings

TorLithoEdXmas
Several more examples of Toronto Litho’s Christmas overprint on their Canadian Cities Series and their Royalty Patriotic Series have been added.

Toronto Litho Calliope 1900

TorLithoCalliope1900
This posting shows a pioneer patriotic postcard from Toronto Litho from their War Ships series, popular in light of the Boer War in which Canadian soldiers were participating at that time. This card shows Calliope, a 3rd class cruiser. The card has been postally used June 4, 1900 from Sturgeon Falls, Ontario by Gordon L. Cockburn to Albert Rudler Jr. of 227 William Street in New York City, by way Hamilton, with a Hamilton transit postmark on the front to the card.

Toronto Litho to France

TorLithoWinnipegFrance
This Toronto Litho Canadian Cities Series pioneer postcard showing vignettes of Winnipeg was mailed with a 2¢ QV Numeral stamp from Montreal with a Montreal Flag C cancel on August 8, 1901 to Courtenay-Loiret, France, and bears a receiver dated August 19th.

Toronto Litho to Algeria 1903

TorLithoAlgeria
The Toronto Litho Canadian Cities Series pioneer postcard was part of correspondence between two women, Madeleine Ellis in Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood at 66 Glen Road, the other, Martha Antoine, in Staouéli-Trappa, Algiers in Algeria. Staouéli is a municipality in Algiers province, Algeria.

In 1843 the Trappists obtained a grant of 2500 acres of land on the site of the Battle of Staouéli (fought on June 19, 1830 during the French conquest of Algeria) where they built a monastery where 100 monks lived and worked. The card appears to be addressed to the vicinity of the monastery, which is no longer active.

The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (also known as “Trappists”) is a Roman Catholic contemplative religious order, consisting of monasteries of monks and monasteries of nuns.

Toronto Litho Sports Series to Holland 1900

TorLithoSkatingHolland
This Toronto Litho Canadian Sports Series pioneer postcard was mailed with a 2¢ QV Numeral stamp from Toronto with a Flag “A” cancel dated February 5, 1900 to Meersen, Holland, and shows a Meersen receiving cancel dated February 16th.

Toronto Litho to Hungary 1901

TorLithoHungary
A Toronto Litho Canadian Cities Series postcard showing Toronto scenes has been added, mailed with a 2¢ QV Numeral stamp with a Montreal Flag cancel dated October 7, 1901 to Budapest, Hungary, with a Budapest receiving cancel.

Toronto Litho Christmas overprint

TorLithoTorontoXmas2
This Canadian Cities Series card with one of the Toronto designs shows the text “Wishing You A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A happy new year.” on a ribbon along with sprigs of holly. This card is not postally used, although bearing a 1¢ Jubilee stamp, so the date is unknown, however it most likely dates to 1902.

Toronto Litho Quebec City "Private Post Card"

TorLithoQuebecPPC
An example has been added of Toronto Litho’s pioneer postcard Canadian Cities Series Type I Quebec City card with the scarce occurrence of the text “Private Post Card”. This text appeared early in the issuance of the series, in keeping with postal regulations.

Toronto Litho Halifax Xmas

TorLithoHalifaxXmasB
In recognition of the season, I’ve posted a Toronto Litho Canadian Cities Series pioneer postcard of the Halifax design, with a Xmas & New Year’s Greeting printed on the reverse. The card was mailed from Halifax on January 4, 1900 to Herr Aug Goetze, Bahnhof, Zittau YS, Germany (a city in the south east of the Free State of Saxony, Germany, very close to the border tri-point of Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic) with a Zittau Jan 17 1900 receiver. The sender was A. Burnham of New York City. The card is of particular interest, as it was initially printed in 1898 with the year 1898-9 in the greeting, which was subsequently overprinted with 1899-1900.

Toronto Litho Series 9

TorLithoTranscontinental
A number of postcards from the Toronto Litho Co. Series 9 (as enumerated by Michael J. Smith in his The Canadian Patriotic & Heraldic Postcard Handbook 1897–1945 Volume II), have been added.

Toronto Litho from Toronto to Tokyo, 1903

TorLithoQuebecTokyo
This Toronto Litho Co. Ltd. pioneer postcard from their Canadian Cities Series illustrating one of the two Quebec City designs has been mailed with a 2¢ QV Numeral stamp from Toronto on April 22, 1903 to Miss Nora von Fallot, at 56 Tsukiji, Tokyo, Japan with a Tokyo receiving cancel dated May 18, 1903, on the reverse.

The reverse of the card contains extensive social history, with the author, Carla, noting that last Wednesday she had seen Sir Oliver Mowat’s funeral procession, and that she attended the Diocese of Toronto Women’s Auxiliary meeting last week, where Miss Cartwright was elected 1st vice president.

Toronto Litho Montreal early use

A new example of Toronto Litho’s Montreal Victoria Bridge design has been added.

This is one of the earlier uses of this series, postally used from Toronto to New York on June 28, 1898. An interesting aspect of this card is that it bears the text “PRIVATE POST CARD” in a purple ink stamp on the face of the card. I’ve often wondered the sequence that Toronto Litho issued the version of the card with the same text printed on the card.

As a conjecture, this could be an example of the second design variation, the first being issued without the text, the second being issued with a rubber stamp of the text, and the third being with the printed text. As the printed text version is scarce, it could be that cards without the text soon became acceptable use through the postal service, and the added text was dropped.

In Allan Steinhart’s “The Postal History of the Post Card in Canada, 1878–1911. He writes that in January 1898, The Official Postal Guide set out the rules for private post cards to foreign destinations, stating:

“…the face should be reserved exclusively for the address and the superscription ‘Private Post Card’.”

While the USA, being the destination of this card, was not considered a foreign destination for the purposes of this regulation, the inclusion of the Private Post Card text on cards would allow a sender greater flexibility in choice of destination.

Toronto Litho Illustrated Envelope

Toronto Litho King Edward Hotel Cover
This illustrated envelope featuring Toronto’s King Edward Hotel has been published by the Toronto Litho Co. showing a scene similar to their postcard for the same hotel. The reverse of the envelope bears a stamp box and location for the address, and the words “Design Patented” and “Toronto Litho Co.”

Toronto Litho to Malta

Toronto Litho Malta Jubilee
This example of a Toronto Litho pioneer postcard from the Canadian Cities Series shows a late use of a 2¢ Jubilee stamp, no. 52, mailed March 22, 1904 to Sliema, Malta.

There is extensive correspondence on the reverse from H.B. Currie to a collector in Malta with whom he had been corresponding. H.B. Currie was a post office clerk in Walkerton in the 1901 census, living as a roomer in a local residence at the time. Born October 14, 1875, he would have been 28 years old when he mailed this card. Currie sought to sell the collector a map of Kimberly & Boshof, South Africa. The 2’ x 3’ map on canvas folded into pocket size, and was given to him by his brother who served in the Boer War.

Toronto Litho president's mail to Belgium

Toronto Litho Toronto Too Late
This Toronto Litho Co. Ltd. pioneer postcard was mailed by the company’s president, William Stone, to Hotel de la Poste in Ghent, Belgium from the company’s headquarters at 680 King Street West in Toronto. It is postmarked with a Bathurst Street Toronto postmark dated October 10, 1899, and bears a 2 Map stamp as well as a “Too Late” cancellation. The card also bears a Gand October 24, 1899 receiving cancel. Stone writes:

“Dear Sir: Knowing your good Hotel by reputation, I take the liberty of asking you to kindly mail mean illustrated post card of your City. Hoping to pay you a visit in the near future. Yours sincerely,Wm. Stone”

This note by William Stone prompts the question, was Stone a postcard collector? Was this research into contemporary European postcard printing part of company business? Or was Stone just curious about a city he planned to visit?