Martin Hartzold, bookseller

Generalist concern with ever-developing specialties in automobilia, vernacular photography, and the Midwest. A few items presented here, though most material offered via periodic e-lists and catalogs sent directly to our email list.

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  • [Six Photo Postcard Views of the 1912 AAA Grand Prize Race / Vanderbilt Cup in Milwaukee]

[Six Photo Postcard Views of the 1912 AAA Grand Prize Race / Vanderbilt Cup in Milwaukee]

$500.00
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[Six Photo Postcard Views of the 1912 AAA Grand Prize Race / Vanderbilt Cup in Milwaukee]

$500.00

A scarce group of six seemingly unrecorded real photo postcard views which we believe capture the 1912 Grand Prize Race of the Automobile Club of America, a prestigious early American automobile race run in conjunction with that year's Vanderbilt Cup and over the same course in Milwaukee.

One of of the views has an illegible (to my eyes anyway) place name hand-written to the otherwise blank versos that seems to read "Cannoville (or Carroville?), Wis." (or something thereabouts) but no place exists which would have held an automobile race of this caliber at the time. We suspect it is an out-dated place name once associated with what was the predominantly rural western suburb of Wauwatosa where the 7.882 mile course was laid out. 

We've been pouring over Joel Finn's excellent 2012 book THE 1912 MILWAUKEE RACES since acquiring these, hoping to find a precise match to one of these images, but haven't yielded anything exact. The distinct number schemes run during this race all match up to views and program info. from the Grand Prize Race, which is foundational to our judgement here. In addition, there are enough near matches to make us very confident in declaring these of the Grand Prize race though, including a view on pp. 186 of the Ernie Moross-owned Benz #31 with it's hood off in the pits ; a couple views of the Fiat S74 of Barney Oldfield (No. 44) which match with one view of a car roaring down a straightaway here ; and a pit lane view of the No. 35 Mercedes of Ralph DePalma matches with what Finn shows in great detail on pp. 205.

These are standard real photo postcards, each about 3 1/2" x 5 1/2," each shown here in detailed scans. One appears to be a double-exposure. Each has a divided back and all backs are blank except for the one with the hand-written place name shown here. 

FREE FedEx shipment to The USA (or any other carrier you prefer). Please don't hesitate with questions and thanks for looking. 

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A scarce group of six seemingly unrecorded real photo postcard views which we believe capture the 1912 Grand Prize Race of the Automobile Club of America, a prestigious early American automobile race run in conjunction with that year's Vanderbilt Cup and over the same course in Milwaukee.

One of of the views has an illegible (to my eyes anyway) place name hand-written to the otherwise blank versos that seems to read "Cannoville (or Carroville?), Wis." (or something thereabouts) but no place exists which would have held an automobile race of this caliber at the time. We suspect it is an out-dated place name once associated with what was the predominantly rural western suburb of Wauwatosa where the 7.882 mile course was laid out. 

We've been pouring over Joel Finn's excellent 2012 book THE 1912 MILWAUKEE RACES since acquiring these, hoping to find a precise match to one of these images, but haven't yielded anything exact. The distinct number schemes run during this race all match up to views and program info. from the Grand Prize Race, which is foundational to our judgement here. In addition, there are enough near matches to make us very confident in declaring these of the Grand Prize race though, including a view on pp. 186 of the Ernie Moross-owned Benz #31 with it's hood off in the pits ; a couple views of the Fiat S74 of Barney Oldfield (No. 44) which match with one view of a car roaring down a straightaway here ; and a pit lane view of the No. 35 Mercedes of Ralph DePalma matches with what Finn shows in great detail on pp. 205.

These are standard real photo postcards, each about 3 1/2" x 5 1/2," each shown here in detailed scans. One appears to be a double-exposure. Each has a divided back and all backs are blank except for the one with the hand-written place name shown here. 

FREE FedEx shipment to The USA (or any other carrier you prefer). Please don't hesitate with questions and thanks for looking.