Four Chums

I'm going to do postcards for awhile.  Sooner or latter I'll get tired of it and move on to snapshots, or photo albums, or something else.  But for the time being, it's all postcards all the time.  Just a bit on dating early postcards.  Up until 1898, the U.S. Post Office, in the United States, had a monopoly on the printing of postcards.  After 1898, private publishers and individuals were allowed to make cards, but the post office retained control over the term postcard so privately produced cards were referred to as private mailing cards.  After 1901, the post office ceded it's exclusive use of the word postcard.  Up until 1907, it was against postal regulations to write anything on the back of a card, except the address.  Cards had undivided backs, lacking the line that divided the address from the area allowed for messages.  So, this is a privately produced card, labeled postcard, with an undivided back, so it should have been made between 1901 and 1907.  That is if the person who printed this card hadn't saved a box of card stock for a decade or two.

Written on the back, "Ruby"