Some are
artist-signed, among them the
humorous child characters done by Katherine Gassaway like FL 114 and the
national costumes like FL 226.
Others include the work of Gene Carr with his rascally comic-strip-style characters engaged in neighborhood pranks, parades , and games. Some, like FL 219/6 occur in sets with subseries. Another group, a series of 60 "vinegar valentines" drawn by August Hutaf, comically depict human character types. Each card in this series appears in two versions: one with a light background which bears Hutaf's name and another with a dark background usually lacking the name, like FL 375.
There is a patriotic series, of which F2000/5, below, is an example, and artists in the Gibson girl style, in this case John Cecil Clay's "Garden of Love" series on FL 171.
'F' cards also offer greetings, both flat & embossed, some of which have set numbers like F 52/1, "Joyful Easter," below. The card, though udb has a "shell" or "wave" logo and fonts which generally appear later. Also, the paper has the look and feel of a linen card. F 465/1 is embossed and spangled with a framed rural winter scene. An interesting case is FL 228, an embossed greeting, which is really two cards with the same series number. However, one card wishes Merry Christmas, the other Happy New Year.
There are also F view scenes, the 'F' in this case specifying "frame." There was apparently a call for cards which appeared to be paintings set within a faux wood frame. In my collection, the inset view is always a 'D' (delft blue) scene, such as FD 5998, below, showing a bridge (6th Ave?) into Pittsburgh. One surprising group shows not cute kids or sentimental greetings or regular views, but painted views signed by an artist whose name I cannot decipher. It is art I cannot appreciate, either, and I cannot fathom why Rotograph spent time and effort on this series. Below is F1003/2, sailboats against a stormy sky.
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