India
Postcards actually developed in part from advertising cards.
Trade
Meerut. Business premises of A. Emmer
Postcards of retail establishments that are titled as such are not common.
An Arab Ship, Bombay Harbour
An atypical postcard that shows a ship in dry dock.
Madras from the Pier
The Madras Port (now called Chennai Port) is more than 125 years old. The construction of this pier was a major step as previously, bringing people and goods to land via boats from large ships was treacherous.
Postmarked 19 Feb [1907] and addressed
A Fair Exchange
An early lithographic card by the elusive Bombay lithographer and publisher W. Cooper. Like some of this other cards, it seems to have originated in a photograph also published as a postcard by The Phototype Co.
Shipping on the Hooghly
An example of how the earliest postcards of a place were often design masterpieces. Note how the palm tree merges with the ship masts, and nautical rope and elements carefully surround the whole frame.
India
This 1892 Singer Manufacturing Co. advertising card for its sewing machines is probably the very first postcard of India, even if technically it was an ad card and not meant to be mailed with a stamp and address visible on the back.
[Original
Coromandel Coaster (India) 19th Century
From a German painted series on the different kinds of ships used along India's coasts, a subject that seems to have escaped the attention of Indian and British postcard publishers.
As far as the origin of the word Coromandel, Hobson-Jobson declared:
Ceylon Tea Packers
[Original caption] The amount of tea exported from Ceylon annually exceeds 150,000,000 lbs., and about 400,000 coolies from Southern India are employed in the tea gardens.
Coin-card with Viceroy-Flag of India
An early postcard summarizing the value of British Indian coinage, one rupee and below, in silver and copper. One British pound at the time was worth 240 pence, with 1 Rupee worth 16 pence (the 'd' on the card). Another postcard summarized the value
