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A 5.5x3.5" vintage RPPC photo postcard from the estate of a vintage automobile postcard collector. This was part of a huge collection of antique postcards.
Photo Overview
A charming real photo postcard capturing a brass era runabout automobile parked in a grassy backyard, with three occupants posed proudly aboard - a woman in a light dress and two men in period caps. The small two-seat runabout, which strongly resembles a Hupmobile Model 20 with its compact body, rounded hood, right-hand steering, and exposed chassis rails, displays a license plate on its front. Behind them stands a handsome brick two-story home with ivy climbing its facade, flanked by clapboard neighboring houses and a backyard shed, presenting a wonderful snapshot of early automobile ownership in a middle-class American neighborhood around 1910-1912.
This is exactly the kind of intimate, personal automotive photograph that brass era car collectors treasure - not a staged factory image, but a genuine record of a family showing off what was likely their first motorcar.
Historical Notes
The Hupmobile Model 20, introduced by the Hupp Motor Car Company of Detroit in 1909, was one of the great success stories of the early automobile industry. Priced at just $750, the little runabout made motoring accessible to middle-class families who could never afford a Packard or Pierce-Arrow, and Hupp sold over 5,000 in its first full year. Henry Ford himself reportedly remarked that he watched the Hupmobile more closely than any other competitor when developing his own low-priced cars. Families like the one pictured here were part of the first great wave of American automobile ownership - between 1910 and 1915, car registrations in the United States exploded from under 500,000 to nearly 2.5 million. The runabout body style seen here, essentially a motorized buggy with minimal weather protection, would fade quickly as enclosed touring cars and sedans took over, making images of these earliest family cars increasingly scarce windows into the dawn of the motor age.
Browse our complete RPPC Photo Postcard photograph collection.
Text Present
On the back: "POST CARD" - "CORRESPONDENCE HERE" - "NAME AND ADDRESS HERE" - "VELOX PLACE STAMP HERE" - a handwritten pencil notation "4-" at top.
Print analysis
This is an original Type 1 real photo postcard, printed on Velox photographic paper contemporaneously with when the image was taken. The Velox stamp box with diamonds in the corners was in use from approximately 1907 to 1914, which aligns perfectly with the brass era automobile pictured. This is a genuine silver gelatin photographic print, not a halftone or collotype reproduction.
Condition
All postcards we sell are in fair to excellent vintage condition. Please see photos for any tears, folds, smudges, or other age damage that may be present.
