by Austin Sprake:
by Geoffrey Godden:
This is one of the earliest Stevengraphs, being first introduced at the 1879 York Exhibition. The landscape picture shows the Lord Howe engine drawing two coaches - the same picture that was so popular when retitled THE PRESENT TIME [st480 on this site].
This early version has the sub-title or description 'The First train ran on September 27th, 1825, From Stockton to Darlington' below the picture on the card-mount, with the credit 'Thomas Stevens, Inventor & Manufacturer, Coventry & London' in the bottom right-hand corner, and in the bottom left-hand corner the wording 'Woven in the York Exhibition, 1879'.
Two versions of the card-mount are recorded - one of type A2 with printed Gothic-line border and fancy lettering to the main title [see st560 on this site], and the other without the line-border and with plain lettering for the title STEPHENSON'S 'TRIUMPH', as shown above. Both of these versions were made in 1879, after which the new title THE PRESENT TIME was used for the same picture.
Other comments:
The version with " Registered " on the left has been seen with the reverse single title label belonging to the Royal Mail coach, not Stephenson's Triumph:
The Stephenson's Triumph design was registered on 22 October 1879. The York Exhibition closed on 31 October, so it is possible that there was insufficient time to print appropriate reverse labels, and simply used existing stocks:
{single title reverse label, belonging to the Royal Mail coach, not Stephenson's Triumph}
It is interesting though that despite the Exhibition closing just nine days after registration, in that time Stevens moved the position of the printed " REGISTERED " from the left [of the second image above] to the centre [of the first, main image above].
