Not only the Native American people, but their art and culture have too long been ignored by modern society. Our lives are busy, but we must stop to reflect on our past. Thankfully history challenges us to pay attention to men like the Rev. Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who first went to Alaska as a Presbyterian missionary and worked to preserve the tribal legends of the Tlingit Nation – stories now portrayed on modern postcards.
Since buying my first “collectible” postcard, I have often thought that there are postcards for “everything.” I don’t know if it’s true, but a recent discovery, the card you see here, is my very first Bottle Cap postcard. So, check Bottle Caps off the list.
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.
There is so much more going on in the world of postcard collecting than Postcard History can bring to you through its articles.
News and Noteworthy will give you quick access to videos, news articles, postcard collecting club announcements, and other information.
Let us know about something you think is important, like a forthcoming event or something you’ve read that we should highlight here. Write publisher@postcardhistory.net.
Check back regularly to see what’s new. We’ll post at least weekly but with greater frequency as more items of interest come our way.
This week In A Few Words took a look back at a postcard of St. Mariacka (St. Mary’s ) Church in Gdansk, 
Poland. The city isn’t what it was in 1910, when the card was made, nor in 1945, after the War. But the church survives and is reputed to be the largest brick church in the world, a claim we wouldn’t dispute from looking at the card. It’s a far cry from Hell’s Kitchen, an outpost on the Salton Sea, an inland salt-water lake in the Sonoran desert by a flood in 1905. The real photo postcard of the café there in the wasteland suggests that they had fish on the menu. Hmmm.
___
What would you think of a man who bought some nice but not special postcards in a 25¢ box at a postcard show just because they were mailed and he could read the addresses? And if you then learned that he re-mailed the cards to the address they were originally sent to, with a note — “returning this little piece of history to the place where it belongs.” Wouldn’t you smile a little bit? Us too. Here’s the story of Ben Curren, of Norwich, England, courtesy of the BBC.
___
We’ve lately gotten interested in the promotional postcards mailed in celebration of various postcard-collecting clubs celebrating an anniversary of their founding and, sometimes, inviting the recipient to come to a club meeting. Our earliest is this one, of the Yale Post Card Exchange, postmarked February 23, 1906. The text stamped on the card suggests that it’s a postcard-swapping club and bills itself as “the Largest Club in America.” Of more recent vintage, we have a Metropolitan Post Card Club card touting its 40th anniversary in 1986 (founded 1946) and the Windy City club marking its 25th anniversary in 1973 (founded 1948). Anybody have cards earlier than this?
From April into the fall, in the early years of the 20th century tourists made their way from near and far to the Colorado Midland Railroad depot in Colorado Springs for the Wildflower Excursions. The whole story is yet to be written, but here are the basics.
Copyright © 2019 Postcard History LLC