Newly Discovered Walter Johnson Weiser Wonder Postcard

[patricka]

Since there was a long discussion on this postcard several years back which included an example Leon showed, I thought I would share an example I recently acquired in a private transaction. I obtained this card from a local postcard dealer who recently purchased a large 100,000 postcard collection and this card was just casually sitting in an Idaho category box of cards.

I have only seen a few examples of this blue printed version of the card including one that was originally owned by Johnson. The focus of the speculation on this card centers on when it was produced. The image in the card is from 1907 but there are some real photo versions that were produced around 1920 that used a copy of the 1907 photo. Leon's version was postmarked 1910 I believe.

There is enough of the lettering visibile in the postmark to tell this example was postmarked from Weiser. You can see the top portion of the letters in Weiser - EISER and you can see the bottom portion of letters in Idaho - DAHO The last number of the date is not very legible and to me looks like it is a 9 or 8. Its messed up because a portion is on the postage stamp not allowing a completely flat surface when postmarked but you can definately see the "190" of the first 3 numbers of the date to tell this postcard was postmarked at the latest 1909. Also a reference to Weiser in the postcard message.

I will probably bring this to the National to possibily get it slabbed even though it is postally used and assume it will therefore get an "authentic" grade. Never understood why PSA designated this card as 1901 and it looks like only 2 examples have been graded but I assume there may be 1 or 2 others out there. I have collected, bought and sold baseball postcards for over 30 years and never had one graded and alot of other postcard collectors do not get their stuff graded unless it is going to auction.