I was hoping you would reply Bob. Thank you for the info. The word is written out in only one of his versions. It does stand for a telephone prefix, because in another version it is shortened to Gr 5846.
If there was no GR/Greenbelt telephone exchange in London then it may not be quite as exotic (to me) as I was thinking. On Sun, Mar 27, 2016 at 3:21 AM, Bob W-PDML <p...@web-options.com> wrote: > I have to say, it doesn't feel like London, England to me. We don't generally > write greenbelt as one word, and it's not really a place that we call by name > - we refer to 'the green belt'. However, it does appear to be turning into an > adjective, as in 'the council has sold 10,000 acres of greenbelt land to > developers', but I'd be surprised if that applied in 1942 when the concept of > the green belt was still quite new. > > Also, I don't know any reason why it would have the hyphenated number, which > feels to me like a telephone number. > > It's certainly possible in 1942+ that the owner was an American applying US > conventions to such things, but it seems highly unlikely that 'Greenbelt' > refers to anything over here. > > 'Greenbelt' would not have been a telephone exchange in London. I see from > Google that there are some towns in the USA called Greenbelt, so perhaps it > refers to one of these, or to a district with a Greenbelt exchange. > > A designation like 2R or 2 R can sometimes refer to an army regiment, eg the > 2nd London Regiment, but that was apparently disbanded before WWII. > > Perhaps the photographer was one R London... > >> On 27 Mar 2016, at 05:20, Darren Addy <pixelsmi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Was happy to see the 1939 (First Edition) of the Photo Lab Index show >> up in my mailbox this morning. It took me a while to notice the 6 >> pages of typewritten "INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRINTING AND PROCESSING ANSCO >> COLOR PAPER" folded in half inside the back cover. What I found >> interesting was what the previous owner had written (multiple times) >> on the back of the folded instructions: >> >> PHOTOGRAPHER >> Have your Portrait made. >> Greenbelt-5846 >> 2-R-London >> >> According to Google Books, "Ansco Color Paper" was called "a worthy >> newcomer" in a 1942 Journal of Photographic Society of America. >> Interestingly, the instructions refer to how it "may be printed from >> the usual black-and-white separation negatives or the more recently >> available complementary color negatives." Perhaps not coincidentally, >> 1942 was also the year that Kodak introduced Kodacolor, "the first >> color film that yields negatives for making chromogenic color prints >> on paper. Roll films for snapshot cameras only, 35 mm not available >> until 1958". >> >> Therefore it appears that a (the?) previous owner of my book was a >> Londoner and he penciled his (not so creative) advertisement (which >> appears to me to be sort of an aspiration) not very long after the >> London Blitz ended (May 1941). >> >> I'm not sure what the 2-R designation before "London" means. But it >> appears that Green Belt refers to an area known as "The Metropolitan >> Green Belt" which, around London, was first proposed by the Greater >> London Regional Planning Committee in 1935. >> >> It makes me wonder who this PHOTOGRAPHER was and if he (the penmanship >> appears to be masculine) ever got to place his ad and take Londoner's >> portraits. >> >> >> -- >> “The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness ” >> ― Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Earth from Above >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- “The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness ” ― Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Earth from Above -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
