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Postcard 1950s Desert Cactus Devil's Garden Chrome Wesco Mike Roberts C-122
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Chrome · 1952

Postcard 1950s Desert Cactus Devil's Garden Chrome Wesco Mike Roberts C-122

Mojave/Colorado Desert, California, USA1952ChromeFair-Good

Golden cholla cacti bristle like sentinels against a snow-dusted mountain range in this evocative mid-century chrome-process postcard — the Wesco Color Card catalog number C-122, photographed by Mike Roberts on Kodachrome film and reproduced by Spectratone. The foreground is dominated by three mature cholla specimens, their luminous, spine-studded arms catching the warm desert light in amber and gold, while the distant peaks — likely the San Bernardino or San Jacinto range east of Palm Springs — wear a thin cap of winter snow. The card's back copy describes a "Devil's Garden of cactus, with sharp claws, wicked thorns, and daggers," lending it a dramatic, almost gothic sensibility that was typical of postwar Southwest tourism promotion. Never mailed, the card retains crisp color saturation and clean borders with only slight edge wear. A small patriotic "Let's Go U.S.A. — Keep 'em Flying" insignia appears in the lower-left corner of the reverse, placing production firmly in the early Cold War era of domestic travel boosterism.

$10.95
Fair-Good
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PC-05086 · Wesco Color Card / Western Stationery Co.
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