How about this for a slice of transport history? A post card from the early 20th century depicting a Pickfords 'steam road van' from 1770.' (Look closely and you can see Vic Hungerford at the wheel using the very first Fuller 18-speed!) Actually I'm not sure there WERE steam road vans in 1770 but what do I know? Anyroadup as ever I have Roy Larkin www.historicroadways.co.uk to thank for this wonderful piece of haulage ephemara... and he says: "Brian, wouldn't you just love to receive an acknowledgment of an enquiry like this? The date line on the back fo the card of 190.. kind of gives away its age and on the rest of the card states ' Messrs. PICKFORDS beg to acknowledge your favor of .......................... respecting ....................... to which immediate attention shall be given."
"Incidentally," says Roy. "note the 'American' spelling of favour! I've noticed that tyres were called tires up to the early 1920s as well. Best wishes, Roy." Well you know what they say about the Americans and the English..two nationas devided by the same language. But look at the post card manufacturer! 'Tuck's Post Card' Was this an early sideline of Bob Tuck I wonder...? Or was he related to the actual card manufacturer---Raphael Tuck & Sons, 'Art publishers to their majesties The King and Queen." We deserve to be told Bob!
Roy Larkin has e-mailed this bit of extra information.
Brian,
Not sure if the two Tucks were/are related and I don't know much about Raphael Tuck, but they published a huge number of comic postcards during WW1 and whole series of cards on everything imaginable, a bit like the old cigarette cards. A quick search on Ebay has just produced nearly 4,000 different lots of Tuck postcards, so they must have been prolific in their day.
The Pickfords one was obviously commissioned, although it is surprising it is marked as 'Pickfords Series 2', so I guess the hunt begins now for more Pickfords/Tucks cards? Makes you wonder if history ever ends, don't it? But that's the fun of it.
Best wishes,
Roy.
www.historicroadways.co.uk
Brian - Sorry no relation to the famous Raphael Tuck concern. However - as you may recall - my eating habits suggest I am closely related to the more famous Friar Tuck.
Post cards like this were in regular use by many haulage concerns in the days before folk had telephones. We had a postal system that actually delivered twice a day - can you remember that far back?