This update adds card 5 in E Wrench's "Links of Empire" series, posted at Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) during the 1901 visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall en route to Australia. This card illustrates the map of the Royal Visit travels on the outbound leg of the journey.

Some additional cards from this “Links of Empire” series by E. Wrench, illustrating stops on the tour by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, specifically card no. 10 from Melbourne Australia, and card no. 13 from Ascension, have been added.

A second update with some additional cards has been added. A further minor update was added May 23rd, 2022.

The 1901 Royal Visit series has been expanded by the addition of some postcards, both Canadian and British.

An example of P.D. Ayer’s Series 8 has been added, showing card AYR8-002, as designated in Mike Smith’s The Canadian Patriotic & Heraldic Postcard Handbook 1897-1945.

A very nice used example of Toronto Litho’s pioneer patriotic series featuring ships of war of the Boer War era, in this case the Nymphe sloop. has been added. This card bear’s the company’s Christmas Greeting on the front, with the address and a 1¢ Jubilee + 1¢ QV Numeral stamp cancelled December 26, 1899, paying postage to England on the back.

Another postcard from this series has been added with the attribution to C.A. Miller, Whirlpool Rapids, Canada Side.

A new page has been set up for the patriotic postcards of McAlpine Publishing Co. Limited of Halifax.

A couple of additional postcards from McCoy Series 6 have been added—but with the twist that these cards both have back associated with Atkinson Bros.

A new page has been added featuring the Series 8 cards by the Canadian View Card Company.

Another interesting version of this series, using red ink for the caption and image, similar to the Owen Sound card, this one being from near Coleman, Alberta.

Several more examples of Toronto Litho’s Christmas overprint on their Canadian Cities Series and their Royalty Patriotic Series have been added.

For years I’d been missing one final postcard from the patriotic series by the King’s Printer. I recently filled in the missing card, No. 200 of the series.

P.D. Ayer & Co.’s Series 7 cards have been listed on the site on their own page.

This posting shows a pioneer patriotic postcard from Toronto Litho from their War Ships series, popular in light of the Boer War in which Canadian soldiers were participating at that time. This card shows Calliope, a 3rd class cruiser. The card has been postally used June 4, 1900 from Sturgeon Falls, Ontario by Gordon L. Cockburn to Albert Rudler Jr. of 227 William Street in New York City, by way Hamilton, with a Hamilton transit postmark on the front to the card.

W.G. MacFarlane’s Series 20 patriotic postcards showing the city of Hamilton have been broken off onto their own page. Click on the card above to visit that page.

W.G. MacFarlane’s Series 18 patriotic postcards have been broken off onto their own page. Click on the card above to visit that page.

A W.G. MacFarlane patriotic postcard from the BC series has been added.

A couple of new cards from the “Greetings from Quebec” early patriotic postcard series have been added, along with what may be proof that this series originated with publisher W.G. MacFarlane.

This W.G. MacFarlane postcard series with Evangeline’s profile, showing “Cape Blomidon, near Wolfville, N.S.” The card was mailed from Wolfville on July 23, 1902 with a 1¢ QV stamps to Westport Point, Massachusetts, USA.

Below, the reverse of the card, with a July 24 receiver.

Another early W.G. MacFarlane patriotic postcard, card no. 26 from Series 24B, showing the pink version of the City of Halifax crest, has been added. This card has the earliest Private Mailing Card back, mailed June 23, 1903 from Halifax with a 2¢ QV numeral stamp (a week before the KEVII stamps were issued), to Argentina. The card bears a June 25th NYC transit marking.

Another card from this unconfirmed publisher has been added to the listings of this series. The card was mailed from Quebec to France where it was received in 1902. Since one of the two stamps has been removed, the date the card was sent is not clear.

I’ve created a new page for the cards of T.N. Hibben, Fr. Müller and Ottmar Zieher.

Another card back for Semple & Luke’s SEL-001 pioneer patriotic postcard series has been added.

A new MacFarlane patriotic postcard series, number 9, showing the crest of Britsh Columbia, has been added.

A new unused W.G. MacFarlane Yukon patriotic card has been added, showing Indigenous basket venders.

Yet another variation of this series, this time with the entire front in red, other than the illustration. A previously unreported version of this card with the standard green decorative border, but with the words “Owen Sound” added, and a red inset image was previously added. The reverse, with the words “Souvenir Post Card” rather than “Private Post Card” is printed in red in this variation rather than green.

Some additional cards from McCoy Series 6 have been added.

A number of postcards from the Toronto Litho Co. Series 9 (as enumerated by Michael J. Smith in his The Canadian Patriotic & Heraldic Postcard Handbook 1897–1945 Volume II), have been added.

This example of a pioneer patriotic postcard shows a White Ensign flag on the face. The White Ensign was flown by British Royal Navy ships and shore establishments. The card bears the text ”Private Post Card” and a partially obscured “Stamp Here”, the same text was appeared in the patriotic postcard series made famous by J.C. Wilson & Company of Montreal. While this card appears to be a contemporary of that series with its blank back, the text is in a different font than that used by J.C. Wilson. This card has been postally used much later than its likely date of printing—it bears an Edward VII 1¢ stamp and has been mailed on September 2, 1906 to Danville, Illinois, USA, where it was received September 4th.

The McCoy listings have been expanded to include a page showing Series 11, the issue commemorating the coronation of King Edward VII in August 1902.

I’ve added a card from a Canadian View Card Company series previously not catalogued in Mike Smith’s The Canadian Patriotic & Heraldic Postcard Handbook1897–1945. This card is in a familiar CVCC format, but with the text “Greetings from Montreal”. The card has been postally used July 27, 1903, from Riviere Du Loup Stn East to New York.

The listing for W.G. MacFarlane’s patriotic postcard Series 8A & 8B, showing the crest of the Yukon, has been updated.

The listing for W.G. MacFarlane’s patriotic postcard Series 10, showing Manitoba’s provincial crest, has been expanded, with the addition of an unlisted card, shown at left.

I’ve added a wide range of updates to the site, adding a number of pages in the current site format and deprecating the older formatted pages.

A new card has been added to the patriotic postcards published by the Summerside Journal, and that section has been updated to the current website format.

This example of the McCoy Series 1 coin card has been overprinted by Victor E. Marentette & Son of Windsor, Ontario. The unusual feature of the card is that the card has scalloped edges, likely also added by Victor E. Marentette & Son. The card has been postally used from Windsor to Paris, France on May 28, 1906.

A new example of a Semple & Luke pioneer postcard back has been added, and the Semple & Luke listings updated to suit.

This patriotic W.G. MacFarlane postcard has been added to the site, along with a new Series 17 page, which illustrates cards from the City of Calgary.

I’ve updated the site by moving across the W.G. MacFarlane cards to the current site format. I’ll add some additional depth to this material in future updates.

The listing of Young Bros. patriotic postcards has been updated to the current site layout, and new material added.

A new page has been added to update the Atkinson Bros postcard listings to the newer site format, as well as some new material being added.

A new card from Series 8 by the Canadian View Card Co. has been added. This is a variation from the primary design, of which Mike Smith enumerates 3 other cards with the words “Greetings from Niagara Falls” above the flag. This card, with the image and text “Ice Mountain from Canada” has a similar design to one found in Series 3.

A postally used copy of W.J. Gage’s Soldiers of Canada in South Africa series has been added. This card was used in May 1901 to Levis.

I’ve added an update for P.D. Ayer & Co. to bring that publisher into the new site format, and to reconcile the numbering system to match revisions in Mike Smith’s listings in the second edition of his patriotic handbook.

A page showing the patriotic postcards of P. Cross, a Toronto publisher who issued a pair of series of cards about 1904 or 1905, has been added. One series featuring images overlaid over the Union Jack flag showing politicians running in the 1905 Ontario provincial election, while a second series using the same background overlaid by images from Muskoka’s Lake Joseph.

Another MacFarlane patriotic postcard has been added, this time from Series 9, with the BC crest, sent from Vancouver on July 20, 1904 to Tangier Morocco, with a Tangier receiver dated August 8.

A Series 14 MacFarlane patriotic postcard mailed in 1904 from Halifax to Sgt. Newcombe of the Royal Engineers in Bermuda has been added to the Foreign Destinations.

I’ve added a collection of pioneer patriotic postcards featuring the Soldiers of Canada in South Africa, which was published by W.J. Gage & Co. Limited of Toronto during Canada’s involvement during the Second Anglo-Boer War, often referred to as the Boer War.

I’ve migrated the former Toronto Litho subpages to the new web site format, and introduced some new material. Check out this link to access that part of the site.

I’ve updated the McCoy Printing Company listings of patriotic postcards to the updated site design, and added some additional material.

I’ve updated to the new site format the page listing many of the patriotic postcard series published by The Canadian View Card Company, (CVCC) an early Toronto-based postcard publisher whose work included a wide variety of patriotic postcards, as well as adding some additional examples.

The site has been updated with an addition to The McCoy Printing Company’s listings of Series 6, the patriotic series similar to the postcard shown at left. The Series 6 page has now been added in the updated site format, with other patriotics from McCoy to follow as time permits.

The page shows a number of uses of the series from what was then the North West Territories, some with Assiniboia (ASSA) cancellations.

This pioneer patriotic postcard “Sold by G.W. Thomson & Son” shows three vignettes of Goderich, Ontario—the Court House, Harbour & Driveway Near Town on the front of the card, and a large coloured maple leaf on the back, with the lyrics of The Maple Leaf Forever. In the 1903 Ontario Business Directory, GW Thomson was a local Goderich merchant who sold musical instruments.

From the 1910 Ontario Gazetteer, Goderich, with a population of about 4,632, was “a shipping port situated on the river Maitland at it’s confluence with Lake Huron, and on the terminus of the B&G line GTR, also of the CPR line, in Huron Co, of which it is the county seat. It has a good system of municipal waterworks, volunteer fire department and electric light, and is the location of very extensive salt works, has four mills, boiler and machine works and other industries high, separate and public schools, a public library of 3000 volumes, 2 public halls, 4 banks and 2 weekly newspapers, the Star and the Signal.” “Salt, livestock grain, flour, fish, lumber etc are shipped. Steamboats to all the lake ports call during navigation. Town owns waterworks & electric light plant. Stages daily to Lucknow, 22 miles northeast, and to Kintail 16 miles.