Title
1920s New Zealand Petone from Korokoro Hutt Valley Real Photo RPPC NZ Postcard
Front
A sepia-toned black and white real photographic panorama looking across the borough of Petone from the hills at Korokoro, with the Hutt Valley and the Eastern Hutt hills beyond.
The immediate foreground at the lower left shows the rooftops and street frontages of commercial premises, with painted signage legible on their facades including “EVERYBODY’S STORE”, “MIRROR MANUFACTURERS” and “PETONE GLASS WORKS”. Below and to the right stands a long low industrial building with a continuous range of factory windows and a broad hipped roof. On its end wall and adjoining hoardings are large painted advertisements reading “New Improved Mobiloil”, “The World’s Quality Oil”, and “PLUME MOTOR SPIRIT”.
Running from the lower right diagonally into the middle distance is the main street, a broad straight thoroughfare with tram or rail lines set in its surface, lined with timber power poles and street lamps, and flanked by open fenced paddocks on the right and commercial buildings on the left.
The main body of the picture is filled with the closely built township: hundreds of single-storey and two-storey timber villas and bungalows with corrugated iron roofs, set in fenced sections among hedges and mature trees, laid out on a regular grid of streets. Interspersed among them are larger commercial and civic buildings with parapeted facades, a substantial two-storey brick or masonry block at the left, and a church with a tall slender spire near the centre. Painted advertising hoardings are visible on the sides of buildings in the centre of the town, including “BATTERSBY’S BRITISH WALLPAPER HOUSE”, “NZ FENCE & GATE WORKS” with “HURRICANE WIRE PRODUCTS, CHAIN NETTING, METAL SCREENS”, a “CHRONICLE” sign, and a hotel signed “VICTORIA HOTEL” toward the right.
Beyond the town the flat land of the Hutt Valley extends across the picture, with scattered buildings, plantations and paddocks, and a railway line crossing the plain. Rising behind is a long range of steep hills, largely cleared of native bush and showing bare grassed slopes scarred with pale slips and erosion faces, with dark patches of remnant bush in the gullies and a road or cutting traversing the lower slopes. Further ranges recede to the right beneath a plain pale sky.
Along the lower centre of the image, in white hand-lettered script scratched into the negative, is the caption:
“Petone from Korokoro. N.Z.”
and to the left of it, also in white:
“Royal. 980.”
The card is printed on photographic paper with a matt surface and has no border. A crease and small surface loss are present at the upper left.
Back
Printed faintly in pale red across the upper centre:
“POST CARD.”
Printed in pale red below, on either side of a short vertical dividing rule:
“CORRESPONDENCE. ADDRESS.”
The remainder of the reverse is unprinted cream photographic stock with no stamp box, publisher’s imprint or printed address lines. There is no stamp, postmark, address or handwritten sender’s message; the card is unused and unposted. The reverse shows overall cream and pink toning with scattered foxing spots and light corner wear.
Estimated Era
Circa 1920s. The card is a real photographic postcard issued in the Royal series with negative number 980, printed on stock with a divided back headed “CORRESPONDENCE” and “ADDRESS” and no stamp box, a format in use from 1907 and common through the interwar years. The scene points to the 1920s: the painted advertisements for Mobiloil and Plume Motor Spirit reflect the motor fuel branding of that decade, the township is entirely low-rise and predominantly timber-built, and the main street carries rails and overhead poles from the era of the Wellington to Hutt Valley tramway and rail services. The hills behind show extensive clearance and slipping characteristic of the interwar period before later reafforestation and suburban expansion of the Hutt Valley.
Note: Coins & Banknotes Grading
- Please
closely inspect the photos to understand the condition of the coins or
banknotes before proceeding with your purchase, as grading can be
subjective and varies from person to person. - Please do not place too much hope on grading companies to grade the notes accurately, as they can be notoriously inconsistent.
- Different graders have different opinions, eye factors, and knowledge that influence the final grading.
- Even grading companies do not guarantee that you will get the outcome of your desired grading.
- If
you have any questions or require additional information, I am more
than happy to assist. Please feel free to contact me anytime.
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sometimes even absorbing a portion of the costs. All orders are sent
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