Title
1900s Scotland Dunbar Castle Rock Harbour East Lothian National Series Old Postcard
Front
A colour-tinted photographic view printed as a halftone, showing Castle Rock at Dunbar on the East Lothian coast of Scotland, seen across the water of the harbour entrance. The composition is dominated by the mass of red sandstone rock and the ruined remains of Dunbar Castle rising in the middle distance. The rock formation is broken into several bold outcrops: at the centre right a large squared bluff with a flat weathered top and vertical fissured faces, its base cut by a pale band where the stone meets the water; to its left a lower ridge carrying the surviving fragments of castle masonry, including a tall isolated pier or wall stub standing against the sky with a ragged broken profile, and traces of coursed walling running along the rock edge. Further outcrops continue to the right, the farthest carrying small figures or fence posts on the skyline. A slender mast or flagstaff rises behind the ruins at the centre. At the left, beyond a stretch of masonry wall and what appears to be a jetty or slipway, the rock continues in a lower dark mass. An arched opening or tunnel mouth is visible at the water's edge beneath the central rock. The still water of the inlet fills the middle of the image in pale blue-green, breaking in low white surf over submerged rocks. The entire foreground is occupied by a broad expanse of tilted and weathered foreshore rock in pink, buff and dark brown tones, its bedding planes and fissures clearly visible, with pools and seaweed in the hollows. The sky is pale blue with light streaks of white cloud. No figures are present in the foreground. Printed in the lower right of the image in pale lettering is the caption "CASTLE ROCK, DUNBAR". The card shows light age-toning, a faint vertical crease at the centre, small surface specks, a nick at the right edge and minor corner wear.
Back
Divided-back format, entirely unused, with no message, address, stamp or postal markings. The reverse is printed in dark blue-green on white stock. Across the top centre, in spaced serif capitals, the words "POST CARD.", with a short rule beneath. Below this, at the left, the instruction "THIS SPACE CAN BE USED FOR INLAND CORRESPONDENCE ONLY.", and at the right, "THE ADDRESS ONLY TO BE WRITTEN HERE,". A vertical rule runs down the centre dividing the two fields. At the upper right is a dotted-line rectangle enclosing the postage rates, reading "INLAND POSTAGE. ½d. FOREIGN POSTAGE. 1d." Printed vertically along the left edge, in two lines, is the publisher's imprint reading "THE 'NATIONAL' SERIES. (PRINTED IN BRITAIN.)" The stock is white with light age-toning, a small brown spot near the centre, faint browning at the left edge and minor corner wear.
Estimated Era
Circa 1905 to 1918, most probably in the years before the First World War. The card is unused and bears no postal markings, so dating rests on format and publisher evidence. The reverse is divided with separate correspondence and address fields, a format permitted in Britain from 1902, and carries the printed postage rates of a halfpenny inland and one penny foreign; these were the British postcard rates in force until the wartime increase of June 1918, giving a firm latest limit for use of this stock. The wording restricting the correspondence space to inland use reflects the transitional convention of the Edwardian period. The "National" Series was a widely distributed British topographical card imprint of the early twentieth century, and the "Printed in Britain" line indicates production after British publishers began asserting domestic manufacture in place of the German printing that had dominated the trade before about 1914. The front is a colour-tinted halftone over a monochrome base rather than a true colour photograph, a technique standard in British view-card production of the Edwardian and early Georgian decades.