Original Hand-Colored Lithograph Certificate with Photographic and Calligraphic Additions

Pottsville, PA: Order of Railway Conductors, 1910. Original lithograph certificate (57.75x35.75cm.) printed in black on heavy cream stock, accomplished in calligraphic manuscript and hand-colored, with mounted original albumen photographic portrait lozenge (8cm in diameter). Stock has suffered some fairly heavy frame burn to extremities and verso (blank), along with some brief glue residue and paper flaws from where the stock was previously mounted (not affecting image or text). Still, overall Very Good, the colors and photograph vibrant. Initiation certificate to ORC member William A. Nye of the Pottsville Division No. 416, P&R Ry. (Philadelphia & Reading Railway), Caboose No. 90073, dated July 10, 1910. The head of the certificate shows a lovely red engine steaming past a grassy field, over which is mounted Nye's photographic portrait, though the largest portion of the piece is devoted to an oversized symbol of the ORC, a large circle (23cm in diameter) divided into three equal parts, depicting an arm with a coupling, an arm with a lantern and whistle, and an arm entwined with a snake-like chain.