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A 3.5x5.5" vintage RPPC photo postcard from the estate of a vintage automobile postcard collector. This was part of a huge collection of antique postcards.
Photo Overview
Three women and their dog pose beside a Ford Model T touring car beneath the sprawling branches of a gnarled old Monterey cypress tree along the famous 17-Mile Drive in Monterey, California, around 1915. The handwritten caption on the front identifies the party as "Mrs. Belle, Lady Fitton, & I out on 17 mile drive," capturing an early automobile excursion along one of America's most scenic coastal roads during the brass era of motoring.
The Model T is shown with its folding top raised, brass-era details visible, and a touring trunk strapped to the running board area. The women wear period wool coats and hats typical of open-car motoring in the mid-1910s, and a scruffy dog stands front and center on a lead. A wonderful piece of early California automobile touring history combining the Monterey Peninsula, a Ford Model T, and the golden age of the real photo postcard.
Historical Notes
The 17-Mile Drive opened to the public in 1881 as a horse-drawn carriage excursion route from the Hotel Del Monte, and by the 1910s it had become one of the premier automobile touring destinations in America. The message on the back mentions driving "out to Idlewild," a rustic resort area on the Monterey Peninsula popular with early excursionists. In the years following this photo, the route became world famous: Pebble Beach Golf Links opened along the drive in 1919, and the Lone Cypress, a tree much like the one shading this Model T, became one of the most photographed trees on earth and the enduring symbol of Pebble Beach. The 17-Mile Drive remains a toll road today, still winding past the same wind-sculpted Monterey cypress groves these ladies motored through more than a century ago. Fittingly, the Monterey Peninsula later became the epicenter of classic car culture with the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, first held in 1950, making early automobile images from this exact location especially prized by collectors.
Browse our complete RPPC Photo Postcard photograph collection.
Text Present
Handwritten in ink on the front bottom: "Mrs. Belle, Lady Fitton, & I out on 17 mile drive"
Handwritten in ink on the back: "An old cypress tree above the auto out on 17 mile drive, out to Idlewild. Monterey Calif"
Printed on the back: "POST CARD - CORRESPONDENCE - ADDRESS - PLACE STAMP HERE"
Print analysis
This is an original Type 1 real photo postcard printed on AZO photographic paper contemporaneous with when the image was taken in the mid-1910s. The AZO stamp box, the divided back format, the period handwriting in fountain pen ink, and the sepia-toned silver gelatin emulsion all confirm this is a period original print made at or very near the time the photograph was taken.
Condition
All postcards we sell are in fair to excellent vintage condition. Please see photos for any tears, folds, smudges, or other age damage that may be present.
