Postal Vehicles On Cards

The attached post card is postmarked July 8, 1912. It shows two omnibus type vehicles used to carry the mail from Aurora to Rising Sun, Indiana on a star route rune twice a day, six days a week. Can anyone comment on the make, model, and year of these vehicles?

Can you post any similar cards?

Thanks! Russ

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Hi Russ,
Interesting. I see your from Bloomington. I worked as a faculty at IU from 1991 - 1994.
I can't be certain, but I'd almost bet they'd have to be some make of Ford, since I think they were about the only major auto maker in 1912...

Hey Russ,
The vehicle is earlier in the brass era (large wheels, chain drive, electric) I would guess around 1905 - 1908...perhaps Columbia or Reliance? There were over 250 brass era vehicle manufacturers so it can be hard to nail down some of the more obscure models. Those wheels are extraordinarily large for this era.

I am back in the office now if you want to call again.
Don

Here is a similar postcard from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA postmarked on May 3, 1913. The brand name of this postal vehicle was Auto Car.

Linus

Hi, Russ. Long time, no see! Just joined Stamp Community a few days ago and just discovered today there is a postcard forum. The first postcard I encountered happened to be yours and I happen to have scanned a borrowed copy of this postcard a few years ago. I also was in contact back then with a family member of one of the gentlemen in the postcard photo, but I didn't inquire about the vehicles. My brief description of the postcard is posted at my Flickr site. I don't have enough posts here yet to post a link, but you can search on "Hoosier Recollections Flickr" without the quotes. Then click on the ALBUMS tab and scroll down to the Ohio County album thumbnail. Click on that image and the postcard thumbnail will show up among the other Ohio County postcard thumbnails. Click on that postcard image to go the the postcard's page. This appears to be one I wasn't able to geotag at the time, and I haven't had an opportunity to go back and give it another shot.

Tom

Morning Tom,

Card is postmarked July 8, 1912 and was mailed to Mrs. Ira M. North. I would consider the vehicles C1910.

Looked at your post cards on flicker. Are any of them mailed? If so, what are the postmark dates?

The Ohio County Historical Society has copies of my two books containing many more photos and post cards.

Welcome to the board and keep in touch.

Russ

Russ, each of my postcard descriptions at Flickr begins with a year. If the postcard had a readable postmark (or readable license plate in the scene, etc.), the year was presented at the beginning of the description. for postcards without a cancel or an unclear cancel and no other means of identifying a year, I used c1910 or c1912 or whatever seemed to be a reasonable estimate of the postcard's age. Sometimes I included the full date in the description, but didn't normally record that information for the scanned postcards. I was dealing with thousands of postcards and time was limited. So I rarely scanned the back sides of the postcards. Tom

Neat Postcard!