Although opium was a major crop in the rise of the East India Company, and India the major producer of opium sent to China, with production carefully taxed and recorded, barely a handful of postcards seem to acknowledge the crop and its manufacture.
![Tuck's, Lahore [Envelope]](https://www.paperjewels.org/sites/default/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/slides/tucks-lahore-envelope.jpg?itok=b73iKZFg "Tuck's, Lahore [Envelope]")
What did a postcard envelope look like? During the early "Golden Age" of postcards, they often came in sets of six, a remnant perhaps of lithographic printing presses where 4 sets of 6 images fit well into the bow that was used to imprint the paper.
While the word "dandy" suggests being fashionable, and may be a secondary meaning, the word is said to actually come from "dandi" or the Hindi/Urdu word for stick, which are used to distribute the woman's weight across them men's shoulders.
Another
By 1899, Karachi had become the largest wheat and cotton exporting port in South Asia. The port's significance in wheat exports grew rapidly, and by 1910, Karachi handled greater quantities of wheat than any other port in the British Empire.
Postmarked [illegible date] Rawalpindi, addressed to Miss. L. Ballinger, Montrose House, 155 Uxbridge Road, Shepherd's Bush, London, England, with this message on the back:
"This place is the same as a Town in England I Remain Your Old Dear Best."
A thematically most unusual postcard.
Mowbray's Road in Madras (now Chennai) was named after George Mowbray, who arrived in Madras in 1771. Originally a bullock cart track, it was acquired by George Mowbray in the late 18th century and led to Mowbray's garden house, which became the
A very early Tuck's postcard of India, and likely among the earliest of Darjeeling. Made from an albumen photograph by Bourne & Shepherd, whose credit is visible on the bottom right of the photograph.
[Original title] Maliakali or Devi as Durga the destroyer of the demons of all devouring thing. [end]
Kali and Durga are closely related manifestations of the divine feminine energy in Hinduism.
One of the more richly coloured postcards of the Hawa Mahal, built in 1799. Note the care with which individual blankets have been tinted in the foreground.
