Interesting Dear Doctor Postcard.

I still don't know how I found the thread, but now I've learned that there's a collector's page as mentioned below at http://www.deardoctorpostcards.com/ and a checklist (at http://www.deardoctorpostcards.com/pentothal.xlsx) I also found the exact same postcard below from the AAT. postmarked 10/JA/61 as below and addressed to Dr Naseeb B Baroody in Florence SC. Amazing.

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Q/ What was in my mailbox today?




Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

This Dear Doctor Dexedrine post card is a Poor Cousin to the Dear Doctor Pentothal series ...

... but it makes a useful benchmark by which to assess the DDP cards.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

ikeyPikey -

I recently acquired this postcard, another "Distant Relative" to the Dear Doctor Pentothal series... and this one is definitely a collotype. It was mailed from Yokohama, Japan to a doctor in Providence, Rhode Island, USA in December of 1896 promoting Colchi-Sal capsules by E. Fougera & Co. of New York.

Linus

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Terrific card, Linus.

Colchicine is still the GoTo anti-inflammatory for acute attacks of gout.

I never leave home without it.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Very interesting! I don't think I've seen a Dear Doctor postcard from Japan before.

Note the misspelling "Yokahama" in the printed text.

Thank you for the kind words.

I always thought the "Dear Doctor" postcard was a 1950s and 1960s advertising idea, but my discovery of this Japan postcard from 1896 proves that this idea was way older in origin. Although not a picture postcard with actual postage stamps, they printed on the postal stationery of that period, added a geisha girl, and accomplished the same thing. I am now wondering, who was the first to start this? If anyone has an older "Dear Doctor" style postcard, please add to this thread.

Linus

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All of these forms evolved, so it is to be expected that there were Dear Doctor postcard campaigns before the best-of-breed Dear Doctor Pentothal campaign.

I am fond of spotting and acquiring ("collecting" would be too grand a word) the antecedent Grus Aus cards (which came in many styles) and Souvenir Photo Folders (which came in many formats).

As to the earliest Dear Doctor postcard, you may have already won your own contest.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

The Dear Doctor Time Line is filling-in.

Abbott made a meal of the Dear Doctor postcard, adding localized messages & local stamps & local postmarks from around the world.

I previously posted a 1952 over-printed government-issue postal card for Smith-Kline's Dexedrine.

Here is a 1952 picture postcard for Pfizer's Terramycin, with a US stamp, a US postmark, and a nasty localized message - just compare it to the cheerful Pentothal messages to grasp the difference.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey (who still remembers the day, five years ago, when GALEOPTIX taught him the word "moire")

The earlies here are hand-addressed and are apparently written by people who could understand US addresses or could copy them well. Better than mass-mailers today. Almost certainly the Japanese card was produced in its entirety over there.

I can only guess that goat postcards were easy to come by in Malta.

No doubt, but the "imprint" suggests that this card was produced in Brooklyn ...



... though perhaps by Maltese Americans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_Americans ... Americans of Maltese descent now live in ... New York City (more than 20,000 Maltese) ... concentrated in Astoria, Queens ... ed: a subway ride from Brooklyn

http://maltamigration.com/history/e...ter4-8.shtml ... The Maltese in New York ... In an article bearing the date of August 16, 1925 ... thought that in 1925 there were some 2,000 Maltese living in Brooklyn ...

https://www.everyculture.com/multi/...ericans.html ... {hint: search for Brooklyn in the comments)

Who knew?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Interesting - I had never seen a similar postcard before.

The card refers to the disease known as "Brucellosis" or "Malta fever", which was originally endemic to Malta and came to attention to the British during the Crimean War.

Research about the disease was carried out by the Scottish microbiologist David Bruce and the Maltese physician (and prominent archaeologist) Temi Zammit. The latter identified unpasteurized goat milk as being the cause of the fever in 1905. Since then, the disease has been completely eradicated from Malta. More information on the disease is found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brucellosis

The postcard shows what was a once-common rural scene in the Maltese Islands. Unfortunately the rate of development and urbanisation throughout the country has rapidly increased since the 1950s/60s, and scenes such as this are rather rare today, and can only be found in some areas to the north of Malta and on the island of Gozo.

The postcard seems to depict Gozo - the settlement in the background at the centre of the card looks like the Cittadella, an old fortified citadel located in Gozo's capital Victoria (also known as Rabat): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cittadella_(Gozo)

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http://goscf.com/t/43223&whichpage=2#618397 ... Linus' 1896 Yokohama card

There is an excellent article on the 1896 Yokohama cards at Tom Fortunato's site:

http://www.deardoctorpostcards.com/...ilately.html

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

ikeyPikey -

Thank you sir, for finding the link above to Tom Fortunato's website concerning my Japan Colchi-Sal postcard. Although aware of his website, I had not browsed that site for some time and did not know he had written about it. I particularly liked the sentence quoted below from his piece...

"Colchi-Sal was an interesting product. In addition to colchicine and methyl salicylate, it contained what the company called the "active principle" - in reality, a concentrated extract of Cannabis indica, known today as marijuana."

I got a good laugh out of that line.

I met Tom Fortunato many years ago at a group meeting at a big stamp show in Chicago when he was president of ISWSC (International Society of Worldwide Stamp Collectors.) I gave him two Dr. Doctor postcards for his collection, as I recall, and now he has a database of information on the subject.

Thanks again,
Linus

The Dear Doctor cards were always sent franked with the lowest surface rate. For some countries, the Dear Doctor cards are the only surviving usages of that rate.