Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 366

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(MEXICO.) Collection of postcards from Agua Prieta during the Mexican Revolution. 48 postcards, all but 4 of them RealPhoto postcards, none of them addressed or mailed but 24 of them inscribed with notes on verso in English; minor wear, slight offsetting on versos from album. With original postcard album, disbound. Agua Prieta, Mexico, circa 1910-15
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Additional Details

Arturo "Red" Lopez was a Mexican-American revolutionary who led an assault on the far northern Mexican border city of Agua Prieta, and defeated the Mexican federal troops in the April 1911 First Battle of Agua Prieta. Some bullets strayed across the border into Douglas, AZ. Agua Prieta would also be taken by Pancho Villa four years later in the November 1915 Second Battle of Agua Prieta.
These postcards include several images of Lopez from the period of the first battle, as well as others dated through 1915. While just a few are captioned in the negative, many are annotated with long descriptions. One is captioned in manuscript "Bull pen & ring in Agua Prieta . . . destroyed by revolutionists in 1910." A pair of postcards depicting Lopez are inscribed on verso with a running narrative of the 1911 fight, explaining that Lopez "commandeered a freight train at Fronteras . . . placed his men on it, and rode into Agua Prieta with daylight. The train was expected but not its cargo." One is captioned in the negative "The dead laying as they fell after first battle at Agua Prieta." Another from the same period shows Giuseppe Garibaldi II (grandson of the Italian patriot) delivering a message at a mountain camp, as identified on verso. Several others show troops, corpses, and fortifications. One postcard has an undated portrait of Pancho Villa in civilian dress.
A few inscriptions give hints about the author. One reads in the negative "Horses from Agua Prieta being brought over to the U.S. for safety 10/31/15" (the day before the second battle); the note on verso reads "I was there at the time this picture was taken." Another reads "After being arrested Aug 8 1915 as spies at the trenches my companion and I were marched between two soldiers with guns up this street." Although the apparently American author is unidentified, the inscriptions turn the postcards into something approaching a personal memoir of the Revolution.