Congratulations, we have a winner in the Postcard Challenge
SP has written in all the way from Whoville with the following response:
Okay, here goes...
It's the Avalon peninsula in Newfoundland. The postcard is of the Colony of Avalon named by Lord Baltimore in 1621. There's a significant archeological dig here which is why this site would end up on a postcard at all.
I'm not sure of the date of the postcard itself. It looks like the 40s to me, but I'm going with the 1621 date because that's when Baltimore (re)named the colony.
Here it is broken down from the clues:
Beach Blanket Bingo starred Frankie Avalon.
Canada wasn't even a dream when Baltimore founded the Colony of Avalon.
There is in fact a significant archeological dig there (hence "dig it"). In fact it is a fantastic place to visit. You can go into the lab where you can watch people cleaning and cataloguing recent artifacts, and you can see the Colony as it has been dug up.
The bird picture is in fact a Baltimore Oriole. The key was figuring that Baltimore was a person before being a place. I would have also accepted Ferryland, the current town at the site.
As for the date, the postcard says 1623 - perhaps that's the date Baltimore actually showed up at the Colony. 1621 is fine. I have no idea what year the postcard was made.
Candy Minx made a good guess, with Joey Smallwood and Newfoundland joining Confederation in 1948, and Muppie made a very creative though way wrong guess involving Allen Ginsberg and Howl.
I'll begin work on the prize. SP, to claim your prize, please email me: misteranchovy at excite.com with your mailing address and I'll send it your way in a week or so.
5 comments:
SP from Whoville you are a brilliant lateral thinker. I got the Baltimore Oriolce but never took it past thinking of Baltimore as a place. Of course, Newfoundland was the first guess out of my husband's mouth looking at the photo, but he had no connection to any of the clues so I discounted that help immediately. Lots of fun, Mister Anchovy, and hours and hours spent googling this weekend.
Did you know that just about everything I googled had your site turning up as a response on the first page of the google search? Your readers were all ahead of me on every search!
Muppie
Congrats, sp!
This one had me stumped, even with the clues, which I could not make heads or tails of. Of course, NOW it all makes sense...
Congratulations SP!
Well, how funny...because I thought of Lord Baltimore from the bird...not the place, and was sure the card must be New Foundland...I even knew there was an archeological site related to Ferryville. But what threw me was the year.
The postcard doesn't lok anything like 1600's to me. I thought it was a photograph and looked like the 40's/ Plus, beach blanket made me think of looking at that year, why I frst answered 1965. I even thought...perhaps it's Cooperstown baseball hall of fame or something for a little while because of the bird...convinced that the postcard was from the 40's or so.
The Question of Canada...made me think it was a place that wasn't part of Canada...hence my side track to New Foundland and pre-confederation.
Woohoo! The date of the Beach Blanket movie stumped me for a bit because I thought that was the date of the postcard, but I couldn't help but think that Frankie Avalon had something to do with it all.
A mister anchovy original. I'm honored.
I thought it was a robin (of the red-breast) and thought of Rockin' Robin. Man, I was sooooo off. What a tough one.
Great job SP!
Hmmm, everyone seems to be having contests these days. I'll have to try my hand at something...
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