Offered here is an original antique Real Photo Postcard (RPPC) featuring a posed athletic portrait of a marathon runner dressed in competition attire. The athlete wears a singlet prominently marked “LaSalle Hotel”, along with running shorts and athletic footwear, suggesting participation in organized distance running or track competition.
Adding considerable interest is the handwritten inscription across the front reading:
“A. Bennett, Marathon Runner, 18 avril 1940” (April 18, 1940)
The card appears to have been personally signed or dedicated, transforming it from a simple athletic photograph into a unique piece of sports history connected to a specific individual and date.
By the 1930s and 1940s, organized road racing and marathon competitions had become firmly established throughout North America. Hotels, athletic clubs, businesses, and civic organizations frequently sponsored runners and sporting events, with athletes often photographed in studio settings to commemorate achievements, competitions, or promotional appearances.
Real Photo Postcards remained a popular format during this period because they allowed photographers to produce small quantities of individualized photographic souvenirs. Unlike mass-produced printed postcards, RPPCs were frequently created as personal keepsakes and often survive as one-of-a-kind images.
The presence of the French inscription and the “Made in Canada” postcard stock indicates Canadian production, making this an appealing piece for collectors of Canadian athletics, marathon history, and vintage sports photography.
This postcard combines several highly collectible themes:
Unlike mass-produced sports cards, RPPC athletic portraits were generally produced in very limited quantities and often represent unique surviving images of local or regional competitors.
Antique postcard in vintage condition with age-related wear from storage and handling. Visible condition concerns may include corner wear, edge wear, surface scratches, emulsion wear, minor creasing, toning, handling marks, album wear, silvering, writing, and other imperfections commonly encountered on original real photo postcards from this era.
Please use eBay’s magnifier and zoom features to carefully inspect all images for exact condition details. Examine the front and back closely for edge wear, corner wear, creases, bends, scratches, surface issues, writing, stains, toning, paper loss, photographic defects, and any other imperfections, as the scans form an important part of the description.
Original antique postcard. Not a reproduction.