During the golden age of postcards national printers, publishers and distributors blanketed the country with penny images. National firms such as Valentine, Stedman, and Warwick & Rutter made sure they had postcards from every province and territory. But there were scores, or perhaps hundreds, of others who got in on the game at a local level. On Prince Edward Island firms such as Haszard & Moore and Carter & Company had an easily understandable link to the cards; the former as a printer and publisher and the latter as a stationer. However there were also less obvious connections and some merchants gave posts cards a whirl even though it may have been somewhat removed from their core business. Until recently these local publishers or distributors have attracted little attention from collectors and it is difficult to find information about them.
One such businessman on Prince Edward Island was Richard F. Maddigan. Born in 1867 Maddigan worked in the grocery business with W. Grant and Company in Charlottetown and in 1900 he took over the operation on the west side of Queen Street between Dorchester and Sydney streets changing the business name to R.F. Maddigan and Co. He operated a conventional grocery business but by 1906 had branched out into the manufacture of “Temperance Beverages” (soft drinks) and advertised that he could supply “everything required for fitting out saloons.” The following year he took over the rival Ferris and Frederickson Aereated Water Business. Today bottles from both of these companies are greatly sought by collectors.
Four years later an advertisement appeared suggesting thatMaddigan had once again expanded his interests. Directed at country post offices and stores he advertised that he had 80 varieties of cards available. Richard Maddigan had gone into the postcard business. It is not clear if the 80 varieties referred only to view cards or to other cards which might have been comical or topical in nature. I have been able to identify about 25 cards with the Maddigan name and there are no doubt others about. I would be interested in hearing of other Maddigan titles. The cards show images from a number of different Island communities.
Maddigan seems to have purchased his cards from a variety of suppliers. Many of the images appear on cards identified with other publishers and in several cases these names appear on the cards along with that of Maddigan.
The card backs indicate at least 5 different designs appear suggesting a variety of printers/publishers were used. One of the more common of the designs has a unique card number in the format XXX-XX on the lower right bottom edge of the card back which may give a clue as to the printer. The same card backs and number system are found on cards from the Pugh Manufacturing Company, recently the subject of new information on the Toronto Postcard Club site. Some other cards are noted as “Printed in Great Britain”, others are from printers in Saxony. Because of the variety of images and printers and lack of consistency in type faces on the card captions it is difficult to identify a typical “Maddigan card”. Images of a number of cards bearing the Maddigan imprint are shown below to illustrate the design and colour ranges. Click on any image in enlarge. A more complete catalogue of known Maddigan cards can be found here.
After the postcard boom died away there is no indication that Maddigan continued in the card business. He no doubt eventually sold off his stock and returned to concentration on the grocery lines. Richard Maddigan died on 24 February 1928 and by the end of April the shop fittings and equipment in his store had been auctioned off.
Note: The Toronto Post Card Club web site has a number histories of Canadian postcard publishers as well as checklists of cards from some of them.
STRAITPOST 
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