The Fascination of Collecting Postcards
August 14, 2009 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Home & Living
Collecting postcards takes many forms and can be a fascinating hobby as well as translating itself into an outgrowth of one’s art. My husband and I attended a talk at the local historical society where a town citizen displayed and talked about the old postcards he collected of our area.
Image: sxc.hu
He had researched the cardmakers and the topics. He told stories, too, of his adventures in collecting them.
This brought to mind the postcards collected in my family.
- My inlaws have a scrapbook of postcards acquired on a trip to Scotland and England.
- I had found postcards my parents collected on a trip from their home in New York State to where Jim and I lived in Sacramento, CA at that time of our daughter’s birth. Mother and Father had driven across the country to see us and their new granddaughter. I’d only recently realized how many postcards they’d collected during this lifetime adventure. So I’ve compiled these into a scrapbook.
- We have postcards my grandmother collected of the area where she lived. Many of these date from the early 1900s.
- Jim’s grandmother put together a scrapbook of cards she acquired when living in England as a girl and some she found after moving to Boston when she was 16 years old.
- This reminded me to gather postcards I’ve collected during Jim’s and my trips around the country. I still have some I never sent.
Many of these cards tell family stories, relate family trips and bring back memories of special occasions. Others have messages on them from friends and family which add to the family story.
You can simply collect these and place in an album. Or you can make collages, put together shadowboxes, print the cards on fabric or create other forms of art.
How have postcards played a role in your life?
Postcards are a great way to document social and cultural history. There are so many categories that one can collect. Everyone has a favorite “something” . . . and chances are good that it is printed about on a postcard. My interest is the Nobel prize-winning field of holography: three dimensional holograms. One would think that there couldn’t be any postcards about a subject like that . . . but I have an entire collection of them!
As they say: Try it . . . you’ll like it!
Thanks for stopping by, Frank, and sharing your enjoyment of postcards. Your collection certainly sounds interesting.
Yes, postcards certainly do give us insight into various areas and eras of history. I have more cards my grandmother saved, such as Christmas cards from the early 1900s. My uncle sent cards to her when he was away at college around 1915-1918.
If the cards have messages on the back, they give more insight into family history.
I keep postcards with me, some I’ve purchased and others I’ve printed with my own designs. It’s so much quicker to dash off a postcard to someone than a letter. Also, it’s less postage if one’s budget is tight.