thom

A wikipedia article explaining these "overprints".

The text means "Provisional Government of Ireland", for the non-Irish speakers out there.

Better have the OSI ref :-) maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,715806,734655,7,9

We have an old stamp collection in the house, I climbed up to the attic to take a few photo just now. High value Stamps - note different overprints than in the photo above. Here is one with the overprint inverted and one with the date missing these are proofs of the actual overprints a set of the low value stamps up to 1s. some of the overprints were in red too

I suspect that what makes these especially significant is the fact that it is the "Provisional Government" and was prior to the split that led to the Civil War! There are similar stamps issued in 1922/23 with "Saorstát na hÉireann" overprinted and they are definitely after the split!

Here is Wikipedia article about polo player Tommy Hitchcock, Jr. (born in 1900) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Hitchcock,_Jr.

the wealthy Whitney Family was very involved in thoroughbred horse racing, according to this article from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_family

Flora Whitney was born in 1897, according to this article about her mother: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Vanderbilt_Whitney She was 3 years older than Tommy Hitchcock, which seems about right looking at the photo.

I love their clothes. Such a damn romantic era (though with child labor and racial segregation, I suppose one could argue pretty convincingly that it was all a facade).

Flora Payne Whitney (1897 - 1985) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_Payne_Whitney I agree that Miss Whitney looks to be about three years older than young Hitchcock. Do you suppose they would have been at the Steeplechase races without their parents? No way. I've had a look at the uncompressed Tiff version of this photograph downloaded from the persistent URL, and Hitchcock Jr. is holding a card that has a headline at the top "RACING" and lower down "Meadow Brook Steeplechase Association Belmont Park Terminal ..." Therefore, I believe this photograph was almost certainly taken at the Steeplechase meeting held on May 4, 1912. The New York Times report of the following day is here: query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=990DE5DC153CE633A... and amongst the Society notables in the crowd of 4,000 people were Mr. and Mrs. Payne Whitney, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hitchcock.