The Post Card Collectors Club of America (PCCOA) was organized in 1934 by Albert (Al) Wood, a businessman involved in public service in Kansas City, Missouri. Since his office was in the “Public Service Building,” he would receive many requests from people throughout the country for postcards of Kansas City; and this served as the impetus for him to form the PCCOA.
The club was meant to bring like-minded collectors together and was “devoted entirely to the hobby of collecting and exchanging postcards.” Membership in the club resulted in receiving lists of members living throughout the United States and their postcard collecting interests. By 1940, the club had grown from a small group of 18 to over 375 active members. To facilitate communication among the club members, Wood, who served as the club’s president, started to issue The Post Card Gazette.
The first issue appeared in June-July 1940. The club developed the slogan, “Touring the World…Picture Post-Card-Wise.” From August 1943 and continuing through March 1946, to support the war effort, The Post Card Gazette was a two-page two-sided mimeographed publication. In June 1946, it returned to its original high-quality style.
The hobby of postcard collecting continued to grow during the war years, and in 1943 Bob Hendricks of Los Angeles started an independent publication for collectors known as the Post Card Collectors Magazine. It encompassed similar objectives of the PCCOA and soon attracted many subscribers throughout the country.
By 1946 the PCCOA was 12 years old; and life membership in the club was $1, which included 24 assorted postcards, a roster of members, a membership card, and a subscription to the Post Card Gazette. The volume of business the club handled was so immense that Mr. Wood found it necessary to search for a like-minded person who would take over the activities of the club.
He sought the advice of leaders at the American Legion in Kansas City who highly recommended two disabled veterans, Lt. C. Ray Mitchell as President and Cpl. Robert H. Miller as Vice President.
In 1947, however, Mitchell and Miller, after consulting with Wood, found it necessary to turn the reigns of the club over to Bob Hendricks. PCCOA was thereby transferred to the west coast where Bob Hendricks would serve as President and Frank Kulscar as Vice President. Under their direction, both The Post Card Gazette and the Post Card Collectors Magazine continued to be published as two separate periodicals. By July 1948, though, it was deemed impractical for Hendricks to continue two separate publications; and these two periodicals merged into Post Card Collectors Magazine and Gazette.
The term gazette was dropped in 1952, and the house organ of the PCCOA returned to its original title of Post Card Collectors Magazine. In 1956 Post Card Collectors Magazine ceased publication, and in 1957 Hendricks initiated a new biweekly four-page publication called Post Card Collector News.
This publication continued through 1959, at which time the club ceased operations.
Hendricks provided many services to the members of the club, which was considered a non-profit organization. One of his most notable contributions to the hobby was to advocate for a term which would describe postcard collecting. Through the research efforts of Rendell Rhoades, who was affiliated with Ohio State University, the term deltiology was found to be the appropriate term and was promoted by PCCOA.
Another major contribution of Hendricks, commencing in 1949, and continuing for four years, were his sequentially numbered official PCCOA postcards. Over a three-year period, 61 postcards were created. These postcards were designed exclusively for postcard collectors and represented historic and current events, presidents, anniversaries, postcard-related topics, and many that emphasized a United States commemorative stamp, commonly known as maximum cards.
Nearly all these postcards were designed by Hendricks himself, who was an excellent graphic artist. Hendricks sold these postcards, through PCCOA, for 5 cents each or 6 for 25 cents. Advertisements in his publications indicate that one-thousand of each postcard were printed. Apparently, many of the cards sold out quickly because certain numbers are not represented in later advertisements. The cards continue to be highly sought after by postcard collectors.
An event conducted by PCCOA for a few years was the “Miss Post Card Contest.”
Appropriately, a postcard was produced to honor the recipient of the 1948 award.
Other events for which PCCOA issued postcards were the academy awards.
A listing of the PCCOA postcards appeared in the October-December 1951 issue of the Post Card Collectors Magazine and Gazette.
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Bob Hendricks died at age 44 in 1962 and is still remembered, even to this day, among the great American deltiologists.
A revival of postcard collecting emerged in the 1930’s toward the end of the depression and continued into the ’50s. Many of these deltiologists were children of first-generation collectors. Club narrative that led to magazine publication which is covered here is nearly a lost history. My education from publications is limited to Deltiology, Postcard Classics, Postcard World and Barr’s.
Thank you for this enlightening article.
One of those children you mention lived in my current home and, just by chance, I found postcards mailed to and from her at a postcard show.
Excellent article! Peter Meggison, Tom Mulvaney, Donald R. Brown, and I created an illustrated checklist of the known PCCCOA published postcards in 2024. That illustrated checklist and a checklist for the PCCCOA-related Nyla Thompson postcards may be found in the “PCCCOA-Postcards-by-Bob-Hendricks” folder on my Google Docs website at: TinyURL.com/DMcBurney-Checklists All the PDF files on that website may be downloaded for free. By the way, if anyone has a “Miss Post Card 1948” postcard, I am looking for one to add to my collection.
I own the Miss Post Card 1948 card (my copy is autographed on the reverse) as well as several of Bob Hendrix Xmas post cards, 1949, and 1950, and the Post Card ETHICS card.
Interesting article in how postcard clubs began. What would we so without them?
Thank you for the exciting introduction to postcard clubs and their publications. The only postcard dealer near me happens to have a good supply of old club magazines. Now, I look forward to checking out his stock of magz more closely.
The literal translation of deltiology is “the study of writing tablets”.