Most things in life becomes stale and boring after a while, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Dame Agatha Christie’s murder mystery The Mousetrap. The stage production has been drawing new audiences for 70 years and there is no sign that the doors will be locked anytime in the future.
Artists who draw inanimate objects with human characteristics are only limited by their imagination. There were many postcard artists who did art for these fantasies, but no one did it better than Bernhardt Wall. Fruits and vegetables, why not?
Stories of American manufactured products often describe success. Success is one reason manufacturers used postcards to advertise. Some (like ads on U. S. Postals) succeeded, but cards like Robeson’s Red Pig postcards were more than just ads – they were collected.
“Progress is our most important product” intoned a behemoth company’s advertising once upon a time. Not that we’re against it, and it’s true that you have to break eggs to make an omelet, but progress can cause loss. And so it was with Ashopton and the neighboring village of Denwent when the Ladybower Reservoir was built in Derbyshire, England in the 1940s. Both villages were submerged beneath the waters of the reservoir. Happily enough, real photo postcards had been made of the communities. We know all this because our friends at BBC.com in a 2017 article reported on an auction for the cards and we’re impressed with them, if less so by the loss of the villages.
“Picture postcards from Cedar Rapids’ past show off our culture, humor and history” is the title of this article in the Cedar Rapids [Iowa] Gazette last year. We like the quality of the cards in the slideshow, particularly the one showing the explosion at the Douglas Starch Works.
Those with fantasies about places surrounded by water will love Pea Patch Island, Delaware. Be it an islet or a continent people love going to islands in boats or on planes just for fun. A famous quote from 18th century literature hints that “sleeping on an island is like getting a hug from mother nature.” Pea Patch Island is historic, too!
Storefront postcards would seem to be the bailiwick of a local views collector, but as a separate topic within the linen genre of cards there are some very interesting architectural, social, cultural, and even some biographical elements of stories that may never be told. Every card in the essay suggests a question, like “Who was Aunt Jennie?”
Postcard History is a free online magazine dedicated to vintage and historic picture postcards and the many stories associated with them. We feature richly illustrated articles designed to both inform and entertain postcard collectors and history buffs. We also provide the most comprehensive listing of forthcoming shows around. And there’s a rich trove of links to institutional and personal online postcard collections. There’s also a comprehensive, verified listing of active postcard clubs in the U. S. and Canada, which we’re working on expanding worldwide.
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