Yesterday we viewed several menus from the Chung collection that featured charcoal (or possibly pencil) drawings on the cover. A couple of them had several vertical bars in the lower righthand corner, but the one showing the Chateau Frontenac did not. Here’s a menu from my collection showing the same image of the Chateau but with the vertical bars in the lower right corner.
Click image to download a 1.3-MB PDF of this menu.
So what do the vertical bars mean? This particular menu was used on an Alaska service steamship. Other vertical-bar menus were used on CP oceanliners and in CP hotels. Though I haven’t seen any used on a dining car, it’s not out of the question. This particular menu is undated, but all of the vertical-bar menus I’ve seen that have dates are from 1936 or later. However, I’ve seen charcoal-drawing menus without vertical bars that are also dated after 1936. This will remain a mystery until we find more examples of this menu series.