by Wayne L. Youngblood

Charles A. Fricke and William Falberg, editors, A Contemporary Account of the First United States Postal Card 1870-1875 (2023 re-issue with improvements), softbound, 148 8½- by 11-inch pages plus cover pages, mostly color illustrations, ISBN 978-1-7351629-6-6, published by United Postal Stationery Society Chester, Va., $46.50 postpaid to members, $57 postpaid to non-members, international orders contact upsspubs@aol.com, may be purchased online at www.upss.org/code/publications.php

Just in time for the sesquicentennial of the release of our nation’s fi rst postal card, this book, fi rst published in 1973, has served as the basic guide to the 1¢ Liberty postal card for the past half-century. Originally edited solely by Fricke, the 2023 edition has been “remastered,” so to speak, with corrections, additions and modifi cations from the original 6- by 9-inch publication, edited by William Falberg.

Since Fricke’s collection has long since been dispersed, replacing the original black-and-white images with color wherever possible was a challenge ably met; so much so, in fact, there is a special appendix (D) giving information on all images replaced and whether it is the same or a similar use of the card. But this is incidental to this seminal work.

For those unfamiliar with this long-outof-print book, A Contemporary Account of the First United States Postal Card, 1870-75, tells the story of this much-studied card, from prequel to epilogue.

Sesquicentennial you say? Why is the book dated 1870-75? The actual postal card was released May 12, 1873, but the circumstances leading up to its development and release date back earlier. On Nov. 15, 1870, the report of the postmaster general contained information he received about a “new system of correspondence ” lately adopted by North Germany and Great Britain for facilitating lett er correspondence. I won’t spoil the story, but, suffi ce it to say, the ultimate result was the 1873 Liberty postal card.

Various chapters include the forerunner period (1869-72), the preproduction period (June 1872 to January 1873), the production period (January to May 11, 1873) and the production periods of both the large and small watermarked types of the fi rst U.S. postal card.

Prior to our own postal card, Fricke and Falberg explore the fi rst postal cards in the world (from Austria and Hungary), and trace the development through Germany, Great Britain and the so-called Lipman forerunner and other, similar, forerunners.

60 January-February 2023 www.collectorsclub.org