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Postcard 1910s Linen UC Berkeley Campanile Sather Tower California PNO
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Pre-linen · 1916

Postcard 1910s Linen UC Berkeley Campanile Sather Tower California PNO

Berkeley, California, USA1916Pre-linenFair-Good

Rising like a sentinel above the eucalyptus groves of the East Bay, the Sather Tower — universally known as "The Campanile" — dominates this richly hand-colored early linen-era card from the University of California, Berkeley. The 307-foot clock tower, completed in 1914 and modeled after St. Mark's Campanile in Venice, is rendered in creamy ivory against a glowing peach-and-blue sky, with the red-brick Romanesque bulk of South Hall peeking through the treeline at right. Published by the Pacific Novelty Co. of San Francisco, a prolific Bay Area postcard house active from roughly 1905 to the 1920s, this card captures the campus in its Beaux-Arts youth, before the mid-century building boom changed its skyline forever. A handwritten message in faint pencil appears on the left half of the divided back — suggesting this card was written but may never have been formally mailed. A penciled price of $1.50 appears top-right, a dealer mark from a previous collection.

$10.95
Fair-Good
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PC-04243 · Pacific Novelty Co., San Francisco
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