[MCARC] W9GCJ QSL card from 85 years ago

Nate Bargmann n0nb at n0nb.us
Wed Dec 4 21:53:27 EST 2024


Hi All.

As I mentioned on Sunday evening's net and to Mike and Fred, I have
obtained a QSL card sent by Ernie Wolff of Marysville 85 years ago.  I'd
been looking for one of his cards for years and about a week ago tried a
different search term and this was the one that came up!

For a bit of history on this, see:

https://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/mcarc/2017-January/000328.html

I'd done some research about eight years ago that is summarized in that
thread.  Since that time I'd occasionally search eBay or various search
engines for "W9GCJ" or "W0GCJ" and would come up empty.  Last week was
no exception until I searched "Marysville KS QSL" and landed Ernie's now
85 YO card as the first hit.

I received the card in the mail today and have scanned it but the scan
really doesn't do it justice.  The blue is probably closer to indigo
(take that, whoever took "indigo" out of the rainbow color list!) and
the letters that appear gray are actually silver.  The horizontal indigo
bands have silver at the top and bottom as well.  This was not a cheap
card by any means even in the late depression era and it has been nearly
perfectly preserved all of these years.

Fred, KF0HS, confirmed that the typewritten QSO information was
characteristic of Ernie and that is how he filled out all of his cards.
Interestingly, his signature is in pencil.

Anyway, this is a neat find for me and I may attempt a recreation.  The
font of the callsign and address I found is Cooper Black which has a
long history having been created around the 1919/1920 time frame and has
been quite popular since the 1960s when it was used on a Beach Boys
album (remember, they played at Alcove Spring a couple of years back,
another Marshall County connection).  Variations of Cooper Black are
many and can be found today once one knows to look for them.  Ahhh,
fonts/typefaces, another deep rabbit hole!

73, Nate

-- 
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."
Web: https://www.n0nb.us
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