Publisher · US
H. S. Crocker Co. (Mirro-Krome)
San Francisco, California · 1856–present
One of California's oldest printing firms, tracing back to a Sacramento print shop opened in 1856.
Its photochrome postcards carry the trade name Mirro-Krome; Crocker is described as the first company to print photochromes by offset lithography.
It printed cards for other companies as well as its own, the Disney company among them.
The printing business still exists today, in packaging and labels rather than postcards.
Dating this publisher’s cards
US. The address style in the Mirro-Krome imprint is the quickest clue. A zoned address such as “San Francisco 1, Calif.” uses the postal-zone system that ZIP codes replaced, so it points before 1963; a five-digit ZIP in the imprint means 1963 or later. No published serial-number-to-year decoder exists for Crocker.
Sources: H. S. Crocker Co. history, Mirro-Krome trade name and offset-lithography photochromes: MetroPostcard publisher list (via Southwest Harbor Public Library); Crocker 1856 Sacramento origins: Streamliner Memories; ZIP-code introduction (1963): USPS history. See methodology.