Michel Forand has located and catalogued quite a large number of cards showing views in Cuba.  His essay, copied below, gives the details he has noted so far.  These cards are not numbered separately, as is the case with the Japanese cards, so readers will find them interfiled with 'D,' 'G,' 'P,' and other cards under those cumulative listings.  Perhaps this is a good idea to pursue later with other views of places such as New York City; Providence, RI; and New Orleans, for example.  They could be interfiled by card number but also listed separately by topic.

ROTOGRAPH'S CUBAN SERIES

     The Cuban series of Rotograph cards is in a category of its own: while it has some characteristics in common with other series, other characteristics are specific to this series. Thus there are a variety of cross-cutting features in the series. The table lists the variants that have been recorded.

     As one might expect, the scenes depicted on the cards are mainly from Havana (spelled “Habana” on the cards), but scenes from other cities and areas also exist: Matanzas, Camaguey, Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba, etc. In some cases (rural scenes, in particular), the locale is not identified.

  General Characteristics

Numbers

     All the cards seen have an alphanumeric number: letter prefix, number, sometimes a letter suffix (e.g. G12007a). All recorded numbers fall between 12000 and 12100, but there are many subnumbers and variants within that range. All the numbers are on the front of the cards, except for the D cards, where the number appears on the back, similar to the D cards in the general Rotograph series.

       There are approximately 260 entries in the table. Of these, about 10 are purely speculative (see 12018a, 12023a, etc.): I have not seen any cards with these numbers but I have included entries for them nevertheless because there is a reasonable probability that they exist, based on extrapolation from the known numbers and subnumbers. Other unrecorded variants are possible, but the basis for extrapolation is less evident in those cases, and I have preferred not to speculate further.

Backs

     All cards in the Cuban series have undivided backs and are printed in red, with the standard Sol-Art Prints logo.   In all cases (except the panoramic cards), the wording reads as follows:

        At the top, centered:

        República de Cuba

        Tarjeta Postal

        UNION POSTALE UNIVERSELLE

        (POST CARD — CARTE POSTALE)

        At the bottom:

        En este lado se escribe solamente la Dirección.

        On the left:

The Rotograph Co., N.Y., City (Germany)

        On the D cards, the card number precedes the company name.          

     On the panoramic cards (PA and PE), the wording at the top is as follows:

        Printed Matter

        write on back of this card your name and address

        put rubber-band around folded card.

escribase la dirección en este lado y colóquese une cinta

        elástica al rededor de esta tarjeta.

        At the bottom:

        This side is exclusively for the address.

        En este lado se escribe solamente la Dirección.

Subnumbers and Variants

Prefixes

    As in the general Rotograph series, Cuban cards with identical views and numbers are found with different prefixes – D, E, G, PA and PE. The primary letter prefix is G, found for virtually all recorded numbers and for some subnumbers. The E prefix occurs much less frequently: about 33 examples are recorded here. The other prefixes found are D (five examples), PA and PE (one example each). Some cards appear not to have a letter prefix (“G” missing, in the table), but this is probably the result of improper cutting. One card, with an accordion-like pull-out section showing 12 small views, has no prefix.

Suffixes

     Approximately 168 different views have been recorded so far. This includes close to 100 views in which the number does not have a suffix, and about 68 views which have an 'a' suffix in the number.  The highest card number with an ‘a’ suffix is 12077. The suffix is found only on G and E cards, and on the pull-out card.

Captions

All captions are bilingual (English and Spanish) and all are on the view side. In a few cases, there are misspellings in the Spanish captions (designated by “sic” in the table); Spanish accents are often missing.

G group — A number of cards in this group have a black caption while others have the caption printed in red. For ease of reference, I will call them G-Bk and G-Rd. Most of the G cards up to G12053 are found with a G-Bk caption. G-Rd cards are also found frequently in that range; beyond G12053, all G cards have a red caption.

Most G-Bk cards have the typical soft look of Rotograph's general G series, with a sort of fade-out between the caption area and the image area. The main difference is that on the Cuban cards the caption text is always in two lines: English on the first line, Spanish on the second.

On the G-Rd cards, there is no fade-out and the separation between the caption and the image forms a straight line. The caption itself is in a single line, with a space separating the English and Spanish texts.

E group — All E cards have a red caption and are, in every respect but the letter prefix, identical to G-Rd cards with the same views and numbers, though in some cases there are shade differences. Note that E cards in the Cuban series have nothing in common with E cards in the general Rotograph series.

D group — The D cards are virtually identical in appearance to D cards in the general series, except that the caption is in two lines: English and Spanish.

P group — The word "group" barely qualifies here: so far only one PA card and one PE card have been recorded. Another PE card has been reported, but its existence has not yet been confirmed. As the prefix implies, they are panoramic cards – PA is a triple card (black & white) and PE is a double card (color).

Pull-out card — Only one example has been recorded so far (12065a, no letter prefix). Except for the bilingual text, it is similar to other Rotograph pull-out cards, with a latch on one side holding a “door” which, when opened, reveals 12 smaller black & white views attached to each other in accordion-like fashion.

     Interestingly, I have seen two Cuban cards with Rotograph characteristics that fall outside the Cuban series described here. One has a view side typical of the general E series (caption in capital italics, no margin, number on the back), except that it does have a blank margin on the view side and the number (59911) does not match any in the Cuban series. The other is a black and white card (very similar to type A in the general series), also with a number (9202) that does not match any in the Cuban series; the back on this card is printed in a different font and does not have the Rotograph imprint, reading instead “Havana Art. Co, Havana, Cuba (Germany)”. Neither of the views match any in the Cuban series.

     I would welcome reports of cards matching the vacant numbers in the table -- 12018a, 12023a, 12027a, 12029a, 12054, 12066, 12074a -- or indeed of any other variant not reported in the table. Please forward such reports to Harold Ackerman or to me at the following address: mforand@cyberus.ca

Michel Forand

Ottawa, Canada