Post Card Articles

PICTURE POSTCARD FASCINATION

Picture Postcard Fascination

No hobby quite compares with collecting postcards in the way it caters for all interests. Whether you're a football fan, mad about the royal family, fascinated with American Presidents, keen on local history, a railway buff or a student of zoology, picture postcards offer you a marvelous stimulus for your hobby. And for those merely nostalgic and interested in the events and fashions of the past century, the postcard encapsulates it all.

Postcards are fascinating and collectable in lots of different ways. Each example is a snapshot of the past: a moment, a slice of social history, frozen in time. Every postcard that has gone through the post tells you a little bit about its place in the bygone world. The picture, stamp, postmark, message and address are part of the life of two people...the sender and the recipient but in the past. Few collectors are lucky enough to find a postcard written by a famous person, but many writers referred to current events in their messages.

Postcards provide a panorama of the events of the twentieth century: inaugurations, sporting events, horrific accidents, local events, great exhibitions, world wars. They show the development of rail, road, sea and air transport. They feature actresses, bishops, politicians, evangelist and star gazers. Also anyone who might be newsworthy and heroic. National firms published cards of countrywide interest, while in every town and city were local photographers who recorded all the interesting events of the day and published them as picture postcards. So a photograph of the annual sports in a village could be mailed anywhere in America or the world to friends and relatives. The local railway station, cinema, hospital, church or school would appear on a card. Anything that was part of a community was a likely subject for publishers to use.
Some of the world's best known serious and comic artists of the early 20th century had their work featured on postcards, including art nouveau exponents Alphonse Mucha and Raphael Kirchner. In Britain, Mabel Lucie Attwell's children, Alfred Quinton's landscapes, Louis Wain's cats, Tom Browne's ordinary people, and Donald McGill's henpecked husbands can all be found on cards.

With such a wide choice of fascinating postcards to collect there really is plenty to suit anyone's pocket. Even some cards a century old can cost just a few dollars, the best street scenes attract prices in excess of forty dollars. Special subject cards like theTitanic, Popes and football teams can rate over one hundred dollars. More mundane themes like flowers, churches and country views can be bought cheaply. Age doesn't always provide an indication of expense either for a card from the 1970's may sell for more than one from the Edwardian era. Whatever their subject or price postcards can be and are fascinating! Postcards have been entertaining the world, used for many purposes, kept lovers connected and imprinted society with history to pass down through the generations to come. The fascination of postcards has never nor will ever go out of style no matter how high tech the world gets.