Learn about your antiques and collectibles with Georgia Caraway

publishers offered view cards, holiday greetings, topicals, and artist-signed picture postcards in ever-increasing numbers

Hollywood, California has hard candy

In 1869, based on a proposal by Dr Emanuel Hermann, Austria introduced the first government-issued postal card Postal cards were an instant hit and many other European countries (in 1870, 1871, 1872) rapidly adopted them as an inexpensive way to send written messages

The first to be printed in the United States were governmental postals in 1873 Almost at once American businesses realized that the postcard could be used for advertising Companies began printing product names and addresses of sales locations on the blank side and mailing the cards in large numbers to potential customers (early junk mail!)

A fad was launched around 1880 when pictures began appearing on one side of the postcards

The first images were mostly primitive engravings of buildings and lithographed pictures of ships, animals, and human figures Initially, these non-government, privatelyprinted cards required the higher postage of letters The fad exploded in the Gay Nineties (1893) when souvenir postcards were produced for the Columbian Exposition

In the United States, the Private Mailing Card Act eliminated the disparity in postage between governmental postals and privately printed cards in 1898. Freed from unfair competition, private

The official figures from the golden age of the postcards (1898-1918) offer a glimpse at postcard popularity: official figures from the USPS for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, cited 677,777,798 postcards mailed in this country. That was at a time when the total population of the US was 88,700,000 And these figures do not include the vast number of postcards collected in albums and never mailed

The popularity of postcards ended in 1918, when Hallmark introduced its folding greeting cards In no small measure, the popularity of George Eastman’s do-it-yourself Brownie camera also contributed to the diminished appeal of the postcard to travelers

I have always been fascinated in the types of materials other than letters, cards, and postcards that were mailed between the 1930s and 1950s without benefit of an outside wrapper I have a modest collection of about 10 or so “postcards” that have a small postal card that allows for the mailing address and return address and stamp on one side Each of them says “greetings” and some have short messages such as “Howdy! Souvenir of The Ozarks,” or “A little remembrance of where I’ve been,” with an attached U.S. mail bag that has photographs of the place visited inside the bag I have another mailbag for a different tourist location and the message reads, “May this little bag with a view or two, Lessen the miles between me and you ” A miniature wooden crate from the Farmer’s Market in

“California oranges inside A pair of suede moccasins with beadwork has a mailing card attached with a string. The card reads, “A lucky pair of moccasins I surely hope they’ll fit, they’re all the rage, around this place, so I know they’ll make a hit.” All required one and onehalf cents postage to mail them

My favorites include a postal oddity from Kansas City of a wooden heart with a metal nut inside and a message that reads “I’m Nuts About You,”, a plastic viewer from Fort Worth with a shot of the Will Rogers Coliseum (a later mailer that required 3 cents), and a wooden Scotty dog with a thumbtack eye. Painted on his side is “Having a dog gone good time in Dallas, Texas ”

As you plan your summer vacations, send lots of postcards to friends and family And have a dog gone good time!