Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: firearms

A real photo postcard addressed on the other side to Miss Millicent Edinger, 6709 Leeds St., Philadelphia, Pa., and postmarked Luthersburg, Pa., May 16, 1907. Handwritten message: "Please send us some cards with views from your city. This is Lee & Lester shooting birds off the church steeple." I sure hope Lee and Lester didn't actually hit any birds or the steeple!

"Dear Miss, I will risk everything depicted here if you will permit me to see you as far as the gate. Yours very truly."

Handwritten message on the back of this real photo postcard: "To yous all. This is a view of our tents. Rhoads and two of the clerks came down one night. Hunter." The seven Raise 'ell campers are sitting in front of their tents. What appears to be a quilt or coverlet is visible in the first open tent, and the man seated in front of that tent is still holding the shotgun he posed with in the first photo . Charles R. Rhoads was a pharmacist in the nearby town of Hyndman , Pa., in the 1900s and 1910s. Could he have been the Rhoads who--along with two of the clerks in his pharmacy--visited the camp? And how ironic is it--considering the guns that are visible in the photos and the hunting that presumably took place during the camping trip--that the writer's name is "Hunter"!

Handwritten message on the back of this real photo postcard: "This is the table where we had a many good meal those ten days. The lady at the end was a visitor. She brought 1 gal. of ice cream along." The seven Raise 'ell campers and a visitor are seated around the table where they had "a many good meal" during their stay. Perhaps they're eating the ice cream that the woman at right brought with her. Next to her are two milk cans, which were probably used to store water. The stream that's visible In the background is Wills Creek , which is still a popular fly-fishing destination today. Is that a Buster Brown outfit that the boy is wearing in this photo and the previous one ?

Handwritten message on the back of this real photo postcard: "This was the name of our camp at Cooks Mill where we was the last ten days of August." These seven campers have enough firepower--a couple of shotguns and a rifle--to "raise hell," as their sign suggests, but it's more likely they used their guns and rods for hunting and fishing (I'm not sure why the one woman is holding a tin horn, though). Their camping trip, which took place during August sometime in the 1900s or 1910s, is documented in these three photos (the one above and two more below). The location--Cooks Mill--was a small settlement in rural Bedford County, Pennsylvania, that was described in 1900 as having one store, a grist mill, and ten dwellings.

A beards photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Handwritten note on the back of this real photo postcard: "Uncle Jim in the Old Timers Parade." I don't know where or when this "Old Timers Parade" took place, and I'm not even sure which one is "Uncle Jim." I'm certain, though, that it must have taken quite some time for these fellows to put on grow those long beards and moustaches!

A real photo postcard.

A playing cards and board games photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. A scary scene during a card game! The four young men pictured in this real photo postcard have obviously been playing all evening. One of them is holding a bottle of Tokay wine, and we can see that a tobacco pipe, playing cards, and various coins and bills are strewn across the table (mouse over the image above for a close-up view of the table ). The guy on the left with the unruly hair is staring intently at the one on the right, who has drawn a gun and seems to be trying not to laugh. The two other fellows, however, haven't even noticed the gun. Perhaps the guy with the gun is angry because he suspects that one of his friends has been cheating, or maybe he's just upset that the print hanging on the wall behind him is starting to fall down. Judging by the humorous poem that's written on the other side of this photo postcard (see below), it's doubtful that any gunplay ever took place. Instead, considering that we can see a bed on the right-hand side of the photo and a dresser piled with books on the other side, it seems likely that these lads are simply students in a dorm room or apartment posing for an amusing photo of a card game gone wrong. -------- Handwritten poem on the other side of this real photo postcard (note: "out of chine" seems to mean "out of alignment" or "out of sync" in this context): Perhaps we had a big old time And maybe it was a spree But really I don't know What actually did happen to me. I only know my poor intellect Was most awful out of chine And I longed for just one drink of--- Well it wasn't wine. L. Messersmith, Fairmont, Minn.

See also the full version of this real photo postcard (below).

See also a detail from this real photo postcard showing a close-up of the guns and ammunition displayed on the table (below).

There isn't any identifying information on the back of this real photo postcard, but I suspect that these ladies were related to Bonnie and Clyde .