Hop Picking

One of the articles that I read in my first copy of the SSG news letter in April 2006 was a very interesting article written by Brian Sulman about an order form postcard for a series of Salmon postcards on the subject of Hop Picking. On the obverse side of the postcard was the name and address of Mr. J. Salmon at 85 & 87 High Street, SEVENOAKS, Kent. On the reverse side of the card was a list of 8 hop picking postcards that could be ordered with space for the name and address of the person ordering the postcards. Unfortunately I have never come across this postcard or any like it. The cards listed on the reverse of the postcard were:

1.      Dipping and Carting Hop Poles.

2.      Hop-Picking New Style, with Fixed Poles and Wires.

3.      Hop Garden showing Oasthouses in the Distance.

4.      Hop Garden, Picking the Hops.

5.      Hop Pickers at Work.

6.      Carting the Hops in Pokes to the Oasthouse.

7.      Carting the Hop Pockets to London Market.

8.      Oasthouse (interior) Drying and Pocketing Hops.

This series of postcards had the back Type 1 (or Type A) but there were also Modern reprints of these postcards as well as a Continental size reprint. The postcards were numbered 567-574 plus a set was printed with no numbers. I think the un-numbered postcards were printed first. 

There was also an addition to Brian’s article written by the editor of SSG news letter, Tony Longshaw, which expanded on his article and gave a list of the Hop Picking postcard together with the Type 1 card numbers and the Modern card numbers.

Here are images of all 8 postcards in the series.

Once I read about this series of cards I was intrigued and decided that I would try to find the whole series maybe fill in some of the blanks that were mentioned in the SSG news letter article. How hard could it be to find 8 postcards?

In fact I found the un-numbered series of these postcards first, finding my last postcard, 572 two years after I had started. I also found only 1 postcard with a number on the back and that was dated September 11^th 1918. The un-numbered postcards had the earliest date of September 7^th 1906. All the postcards in this series were by the artist C. Essenhigh Corke.

I did find one of the less common versions of postcard 571, Ivy Hatch near Sevenoaks but postcard 575, Kentish Hops (reproduced from nature) still eludes me.

Type 1	Postcard Caption
567	Dipping and Carting Hop Poles.
567	Dibden, Sevenoaks.
568	Hop-Picking New Style, with Fixed Poles and Wires.
569	Hop Pickers at Work.
570	Carting the Hops in Pokes to the Oasthouse.
570	Old Oast House, Dibden, Sevenoaks.
571	Carting the Hop Pockets to London Market.
571	Ivy Hatch, near Sevenoaks.
571	Stone Street, Ivy Hatch, near Sevenoaks.
572	Oasthouse (interior) Drying and Pocketing Hops.
573	Hop Garden showing Oasthouses in the Distance.
574	Hop Garden, Picking the Hops.

Salmon Postcard Study Group (SSG)

Early in 2006 after collecting Salmon postcards for only about six months, I came across a postcard club or group that dealt exclusively with Salmon postcards and other Salmon related products.

The Salmon Postcard Study Group (SSG) was formed in 1989 by Jack Whittaker and caters for a wide range of member interests including Watercolour, Children’s artists, Fancy cards, Black and White, Real Photograph topos and all Modern cards. Some members study all Salmon productions including Calendars, Books, Guides, Place Mats, Jigsaws and Slides.

There is an annual subscription to join this group which enables the group to produce 4 newsletters a year. The news letters contain a balance of all members’ interests with articles, lists, competitions, wanted cards and new card information.

Here is the cover page of the latest copy of this newsletter.

In addition to the news letters, the group gets together once a year for a group outing to retrace the steps of A. R. Quinton. At these outings the group try to find the exact locations where A. R. Quinton painted his landscapes. Also available are past issues of the SSG news letter.

I really encourage anyone interested in collecting Salmon postcards to join this group by contacting Tony Longshaw via his email. 

3444 The Victory Portsmouth - Post Update

I received updates from Jean Cullen and Tony Longshaw regarding my post of the postcard 3444 - The Victory Portsmouth. Both Jean and Tony are long time members of the Salmon Study Group and life long postcard collectors. Thanks Jean and Tony for your help.

 

The 3444 postcard was not ARQ as I thought but was in fact by the artist John H. Fry.

Tony also wrote that Fry had two other cards in the Watercolour Series, they were 3443 and 3885.

I will update my database accordingly and add Fry as a Salmon artist to my list of artists.

 

Incidently, if anyone has a scan of these last two cards (3443 & 3885) that they can send me I would be most grateful. At times when looking at postcards for sale, often the seller does not mention the number on the back of the card nor the artist. In some cases they do not even mension that the card is even published by Salmon.

So it's nice to have an image of what the card looks like so that you can at least recognise it if you see it.

 

[On a future post, I will talk about the Salmon Study Group SSG (of which I am a member also) and would encourage anyone interested in collecting Salmon postcards to join that group. You can contact me for details if you want that information now and I will put you in touch with Tony Longshaw.]

References

This will be a very short post but hopefully useful to most collectors.

I have started to list some of the reference material I use for both Salmon postcards and for A. R. Quinton cards. These references are listed under the ‘Links & Websites’ section to the right.

These links will also include some sites that I have purchased cards from as well as general sites for postcard magazine, sites with some good postcard collecting hints & tips, lists of dealers, fairs and auctions.

And so that I don’t leave this post without a postcard image, here is a recent card by the artist C. T. Howard. No signature but it does appear in the Salmon catalogue.

4224 The Pier and West Parade Rhyl

Jump Forward in Time

Just wanted to jump forward and talk about a card that I purchased at auction just a few days ago. Not really sure if a got a deal or not.

The card was inexpensive and it was not listed in the ARQ catalogue that I use as a reference. However I have a second catalogue that lists all Salmon postcards not just A. R. Quinton and it was listed in that catalogue. The card is the Victory in Portsmouth by the artist ARQ.

3444 The Victory Portsmouth

The Salmon catalogue has the caption of the card as “HMS Victory Portsmouth” but the caption on the reverse of the card reads “The Victory Portsmouth”. Also there is no artist signature on either side of the card but there is what looks like a signature to the left side of the Victory, near two cannons. I really can’t make out the signature, certainly not A. R. Quinton or ARQ. I did examine the card under a magnifier but the signature was such a low resolution image I couldn’t make it our. So I’m not really sure if this is indeed the correct 3444 card by ARQ. Any feedback on this card would be welcome.

How many Cards are there to collect?

So I think 6,000 cards is too many as a starting goal, maybe I should narrow my scope from all of Salmon cards to only those by a single artist, maybe A. R. Quinton. That would bring down the scope to about 2,300 cards. I think I could handle that. 


So off I went again, on that well know auction web site and found a set of 5 cards from Tenby which looked in really good condition and all had attractive scenes. Now I had 6 cards from Quinton or ARQ as he sometimes signs his cards. Not sure why some cards are signed A. R. Quinton and some cards signed ARQ, even to this day after seven years of collecting it remains a mystery to me.

2347 Tenby Harbour

2343 Tenby & Caldy Island

2350 Tenby from The Slopes

 3769 St Catherine's Rock Tenby

3796a Tenby from the Sands

The last card, I have added the letter 'a' to the number because this card is not the original 3796 image, in fact the image has been altered where two rowing boats have been removed from the original image and the green deck chairs have been added. I still do not have an image of the 3796 card with the two rowing boats. Anyone out there that has this card that would like to donate the image for my files, that would be great. I also found out at a later date that this card may have been updated not by ARQ (even though the card had an ARQ signature) but by another artist, William Carruthers and he signed his cards as WC.

At this point, I was collecting in the dark so to speak. I had no catalogues, no list of Quinton cards or indeed of Salmon cards. So my next task was to do some research to see if there were any lists out there.

How it all Started

7 years ago I was browsing a well known auction site on the web and came across a postcard of a view that looked very familiar. It was a view of a narrow lane leading down a small hill to the beach. At the end of the lane was an old church and at the end of the beach was a pier that extended out to sea. The scene looked familiar because it was a place I had been to many times when visiting my sister. The town and beach was Teignmouth in Devon. But the scene wasn't a photograph it was a painting. I zoomed in on the image to see the detail and discovered the faint artist's signature in the corner that read A. R. Quinton.

1179 Teignmouth from the East

street lamps added to promenade

So this began my search, not just for postcards painted by the artist A. R. Quinton but eventually for all postcards published by J. Salmon Ltd of Sevenoaks, from the Watercolour Series, approximately 5,300 postcards in all with numbers ranging from 500 to 5650.

1 down, 5,649 to go.........