I don't understand this postcard - it is of the Parade, Leamington Spa in Warwickshire and has an advertisement for "The City Boot Stores, Ltd" in East Street, Bedminster across the whole of the reverse. This leaves no space for an address so could not be used postally .... and why a postcard of Leamington Spa ?? Ideas on a postcard please !!
Here is some commercial ephemera associated with Bristol starting with a receipt from Edwardes, Ringer & Co in 1868 - they were Tobacco and Snuff Manufacturers at 90 Redcliff Street.
Below is a Dividend Warrant for the Bristol Dock Company dated April 1872 ...
... and here is a receipt from Lewin's Mead Sugar Company dated 1864.
The postcard below sent in 1900 has a pink receipt from the Bristol Steam Navigation Company pasted on to it, with a violet "ENTERED IN CASH BOOK" cachet applied.
This last item is not Bristol related, coming from Alnwick, but is an invoice and receipt from 1854 from William Maile, Coach Builder and Harness Maker ... "patronised by His Grace the Duke of Northumberland and the Right Honourable Earl Grey".
It is sometimes the odd ephemeral item that is of interest. The sheet below has a couple of items, the top one being an envelope from 1855 with a printed seal for the Somerset Archeology & Natural History Society which had been founded some six years earlier.
The second item is more interesting to my eyes - it is a receipt for a Philips 12" table tv and an aerial dated 30th May 1953. I assume it was to watch Queen Elizabeth's Coronation on 2nd June 1953. The cost (£65 for the TV and £10 for the aerial) are equivalent to what can be paid today (£2,250 and £340) for a large TV and aerial installation.
Below is an example of a receipted invoice sent as Printed Matter by Spiller & Webber, Taunton. What is interesting today is the commercial practice of customers being invoiced later, even when bought at the shop.
Here is an example of a commercial envelope advertising Johnston's Patent Corn Flour in 1900.
Bristol Zoo in Clifton closed on 3rd September 2022, with its animals moving to the Wild Place Project site near Cribbs Causeway. The postcards below show children being given rides on an elephant and a camel.
The next couple of items are commercial, the first being a windowed envelope with a 'Brolac' meter mark from 10th October 1961. Unfortunately the Printed Matter rate went up on 1st October 1961.
The final item is a commercial windowed envlope for The Ray Engineering Co. from October 1965.
Marshalsea Bros. of Ilminster and Taunton were "Manufacturers of High-Grade Motor Bodies".
Here are a series of commercial postcards.
This final example deals with a request for a closed car to meet the 1 o'clock train from Paddington.
Here are a few pages illustrating a few commercial uses of Postcards, firstly from Ilminster in the 1920s, and then from Taunton in the 1890s and 1920s.
The item below is a receipted invoice from an Ilminster Builder, from 1875.
T. Harding, Son & Co. Ltd. were in the printing trade, providing items for the Dairy Trade (hence the cows).
I'm not sure where to put this cover: it is a Registered, Express cover from Filton franked with two meter marks and sent from the Bristol Aeroplane Company in April 1940. It fits under so many headings !
Here are a couple of examples of commercial mail from Bristol, starting with an envelope from H.J. Heinz Co. Ltd. in 1938, with an illustration of the Heinz factory in London on the reverse.
The contents were a letter from the Bristol office about a course in London.
The second item is a windowed envelope from The Imperial Tobacco Company sent in August 1940, with two KGVI stamps with "IT / C" perfins.
The envelope below is from Schweppes Ltd., Bristol to Cirencester in November 1897 and has a "BRISTOL / 9" squared circle cancel.
Schweppes received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1837 and the envelope is marked "Purveyors to H.I.M. the Queen and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales" [H.I.M. - Her Imperial Majesty].
The envelope has a backstamp from Swindon Station, possibly indicative of a mis-sort.
The card below has been sent from Wells to Birmingham by Marsh & Adlam, English Cheese Factors, Wells in 1895. They had premises at the Old Passenger Station, Priory Road, Wells.
Here are a couple of images of Bristol, the first a coloured print of Corn Street, Bristol in 1829, showing the 'New Council House' (that is now known as the Old Council House and contains the Bristol Register Office).
The second is an unused postcard with a view of the Cat and Wheel pub in Castle Green from 1880. The pub was destroyed in the Blitz.
Here's another sideline that emerged duting Lockdown, an engraved billhead for H.H. & S. Budgett & Co. that became a leading wholesale grocer in the 1800s.
Below are two invoices from Bristol bottle works in Temple Gate, Bristol, from 1831 and 1847.
