Mexican Postcard Mystery (from My Collection)

[shadowstein]

Hi all. i have 2 postcards that are part of my collection of weird and/or morbid vintage pictures. they are postcards of what i can only assume are earthquake victims.
I need help figuring out which cataclysm claimed their lives so i can properly label them in my album. I know some of the people on this site are skilled and diligent researchers and so i was hoping you could help me figure this out.

clues:

• on one photo, there is a caption that reads: "Mother embracing her children to death 6-7"
• the back of the same postcard reads, in pencil, "Mexico, earthquake". this could be a red herring, written by some vintage postcard seller as a way to make the buy more appealing.
• the postcard is labeled Tarjeta Postal (Tarjeta is 'card' in spanish)
• the picture of the man has what appears to be a long propane tank pinning him down. if we could figure out what it is and when such a thing was manufactured. it may help pin down a date.

hopefully that might be enough to lead one of us to an answer.

[shadowstein]

real tiny, in the center of the line on the back it very clearly reads "agfa". as this is not a word in any language, it may be an acronym.

[kellyhound]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agfa-Gevaert
https://www.playle.com/realphoto/

[shadowstein]

Originally Posted by kellyhound

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agfa-Gevaert
https://www.playle.com/realphoto/

well that narrows it down considerably. im going to look up earthquakes in mexico withing that range. the part that bugs me the most though is what that 6-7 or 6-71 means

[kellyhound]

Originally Posted by shadowstein

well that narrows it down considerably. im going to look up earthquakes in mexico withing that range. the part that bugs me the most though is what that 6-7 or 6-71 means

the size in inches imo

Regular (or Standard) size: 3 1/2 X 5 1/2 (9 cm X 14 cm) Many of the older cards are of this size.
Continental Size

4X6 inches (15 cm X 10.5 cm) Many of the new cards you purchase today are of this size. Mostly published after the 1940's.

OverSized
Anything larger than a continental size. Mostly 5X7 inches, but some can be found in larger sizes. Although this size of cards is popular with postcard companies and tourists, many collectors do not want them because they are more expensive, not easily filed, cost more to mail, and harder to trade with others. The advantage is of course the more detailed view of the scenes shown on the cards.

Modern Size
These are about 6 1/2 X 4 3/4 inches. They are often classified as a smaller type of oversized card.

[shadowstein]

the 6 and 7 may be referring to the photographers inventory code, so that's a dead end

[Shadolife]

Originally Posted by shadowstein

real tiny, in the center of the line on the back it very clearly reads "agfa". as this is not a word in any language, it may be an acronym.

AGFA is a brand of film. Founded in Berlin 1870's

[murofhsirgo]

Photographer guessing 6-7 years old children when as found possibly? The child's shoe soles are whitish in color.. isn't that a more modern-ish thing? When I was a kid in the early 70's everyone had tennys but me because my feet were too wide I had old school shoes. That really sucked, ugh! But I could kick a soccer ball about a mile, lol

[Laohu]

Michoacan earthquake, June 7, 1911 (that's what the 6-7 refers to).

[William May]

Could the 2nd guy be working at a mine? The thing with bars could be a "Grizzly", used to stop large boulders from falling down shafts, and called that because they often attack the miners who were trying to clear boulders by breaking them up. The cylinder could be a compressed air tank. Just conjecture on my part. Don't think prisons had air tanks (or water heaters, either, that early) so thought it must be a mine.