Also traded as Detroit Photographic Co. and Detroit Photochrom Co.; cards often carry a painter’s palette mark
Held rights to the Photochrom and Photostint processes
Numbers map to first-printing years; reprints continued for years on original numbers; late cards carry Roman-numeral year marks
A Detroit “Phostint” card — no. 1228, Mt. Pleasant, Benedict Arnold’s Mansion, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. A lovely lesson in the Detroit caveat: the image is copyrighted 1900, but the back is divided (a format not allowed until 1907) and the card is postmarked 1910 — so what you hold is a 1907–1910 reprint of a 1900 image, mailed in 1910. The number 1228 falls in a gap the dating tables don’t document, so here the copyright line, not the number, gives the year.Scanned from the Postcard Origins collectionThe clue that does the work: a printed Copyright 1900 on the front. When the number lands in a gap, this dates the image directly.From the collection
The maker’s line: “PHOSTINT” CARD MADE ONLY BY DETROIT PUBLISHING CO. Phostint was Detroit’s trademarked colour process, so this mark alone identifies the printer.Scanned from the Postcard Origins collection
Dating this publisher’s cards
US. Numbers map to the year of first printing, but reprints continued for years on the original number, so a number sets the earliest possible date; late cards add a Roman-numeral year. Use the decoder. Many Detroit cards also carry a printed copyright year on the front; that dates the image (and usually its first printing) even when the catalogue number falls in a gap the tables do not cover.
