The mystery of the "same sky" postcards

An obsessive collector noticed something strange in his 11,000 postcards.

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James Brouwer has been collecting postcards for more than 30 years. His collection numbers over 11,000; images of old age homes, ugly restaurants, and 1960s advertising are neatly organized in boxes in his Canadian home. But James started to notice that some of his postcards — dozens, in fact — appeared to have the exact same sky. Looking even closer, he noticed that the same-sky postcards were all made by one publisher: Dexter Press out of West Nyack, New York.

Dexter Press was once one of the largest publishers of "chrome-era postcards," — postcards made from color photographs that became popular in the 1940s. By the time James started collecting in the 1980s, "chrome cards" were mostly overlooked by collectors, and could be bought for cheap in flea markets. It wasn't until he looked through a lot of these cards that he noticed the same sky repeating itself.

Darkroom producer Coleman Lowndes took a trip to British Columbia, Canada, to see James's collection for himself — and to help solve the mystery of these identical skies. To James though, the mystery doesn't really matter. The reason the skies look the same is less important to him than the unusual visual effect it produces when all these skies come together.

Darkroom is a history and photography series that anchors each episode around a single image. Analyzing what the photo shows (or doesn't show) provides context that helps unravel a wider story. Watch previous episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ8cMiYb3G5ce8J4P5j5qOEtYR94Z3DQs

Explore James’s full postcard collection online here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/94207108@N02/albums/with/72157633138912882

Bill Burton’s online magazine Postcard History: https://postcardhistory.net/

Read up on Dexter Press and all things postcard on MetroPostcard: http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersd.html

Original Dexter Press postcards at Queen of Chrome’s eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/queenofchromespostcardstash

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Видео The mystery of the "same sky" postcards канала Vox