I wanted to show 3 different original boxes from my souvenir collection that are not currently pictured anywhere else that I could see. Each one houses a 53-card deck of Philippine Souvenir Cards listed as SX22 in the Exposition and World's Fair chapter from the Dawson/Hochman encyclopedia. I have never seen a 54th card (title card, list of views card, booklet, etc.) for this deck but would love to see an example if one exists and a fellow collector is willing to add it to this topic. Each card comes with gilt edges and shows a photograph of "Philipeno" (spelled this way on the 2S) people, places and scenes of daily life as they were 120 years ago at the beginning of the 20th century.
The first photo shows what I believe to be the first edition of the original box (OB) which states on the front panel, "Published by The Philippine Photograph Co., Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Mo." There may be something else printed on this last line but, if there is, it is covered by the tax stamp and cannot be read. The fair was held in 1904 and this verbiage confirms what appears in the encyclopedia.
The second photo shows what appears to be a second edition of the original box for this deck. It is the same as the first edition except that there now appears at the bottom of the front panel, a small sticker pasted over the original printing which reads "Squires, Bingham & Co., Photographic Supplies. and Philippine Views., Manila, P.I." This box also has a tax stamp in the same location as above and it has a 1904 cancellation printed in red but I cannot make out which company applied it as it is indistinct. This cancellation does not appear to be the standard USPC one but consists of 3 lines. The first line ends in "...C. Co.", the second line ends in "...LY. followed by what may be the number 19, and the third line shows the year 1904.
The third photo shows what may be a third edition of the original box for this deck. Here, a much larger sticker has been pasted over the entire front panel and it simply reads "Philippine Souvenir Playing Cards published by Squires, Bingham & Co., Manila, P.I."
All I could find out about Squires, Bingham & Co. is that it was a Manila print shop founded by Ray Squires and William Bingham in 1905. Now, in my opinion, these different boxes raise the following questions. What was the relationship between The Philippine Photograph Co. and Squires, Bingham & Co.? Despite the same cancellation year of 1904 showing on the tax stamp from the second and third editions of these original boxes, does the fact that Squires, Bingham & Co. not being founded until the following year imply that there may have been some overstock of these decks and that they continued to be sold by this company in the years after the fair? Again, some reader possessing greater research skills than my own may be able to delve into this latest mystery and provide answers to these questions.
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