Bamforth & Co Ltd postcards

Bamforth & Co.  

1870-1990 Holmfirth, England  James Bamforth began his career as a manufacturer of lantern slides. In 1890 he started production of illustrated song lyric slides that audiences could sing along to at shows. This quickly became his most popular selling item. In the years following, the Company became the largest producer of model slides. From this vast photo inventory Bamforth began to publish of a variety of postcard types including comics, greetings, propaganda, real photos, and views, but especially song sets, many of which were reproduced from lantern slide images. Today they are best remembered for their series of saucy seaside postcards, which may have numbered close to a 100,000 different titles. While this series was begun in 1902, they did not become very popular until the 1930’s. In 1906 Bamforth opened a New York Office at 35 West 21st Street. By 1910 they had become a Limited company. The Company was sold to ETW Dennis, but in 2000 the rights to their images was purchased by Ian Walker. [source]

The first postcard I have from this publisher is a really sweat and funny one. On the front the caption reads: 'The sweetest girl in Dixie.' and on the back it is hand written: 'To the Love of mine, Alice. What Do you know about this -- "D   hug" '. This one is No 258 and it says at the front 'Photo only copyright 1907, by Bamford & Co.'.

The second one is No 2006 from one of the funny series. It is posted and stamped but unfortunately I can only read 'April' and nothing else of the date. It was posted from and to Altamont, New York, and a 1 cent stamp was used.