November 5, 2024
Author: Ray Hahn
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Bruce Bairnsfather: the Father of Wartime Comics
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Long before Private Breger (drawn by Dave Breger) shared with us the humor in the often illogical routine of daily army life and Willie and Joe (drawn by Bill Mauldin) became the voice of truth about what it was like on the front lines of war, our British cousins had Old Bill, drawn by Captain…
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St. Mariacka in Gdansk
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When I saw St. Mariacka (St. Mary’s) it was very different from the picture on this postcard. On a warm day in late September, the dim interior of this church was a welcome relief from the searing sun and blinding light of mid-day. The languages around me that day were Polish and English and the…
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The Whole Story of the Needle’s Hole
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This story is a complete accounting of how needles are manufactured. Be careful, it has some very sharp points of view.
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Copernicus, Science and the Church
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I slept in a London hotel on a Saturday in May 2010. Sunday morning I went downstairs for breakfast a few hours before my flight to Philadelphia and while waiting for a full-English fry-up, I chose a newspaper from the rack by the door and found the following banner headline: After 467 years, Copernicus gets…
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G. W. Bonte’s Tuck Postcards
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Stan Davidson died at his Massachusetts home in 2012 and left his postcard friends to wonder how we would ever replace him. So far, it hasn’t happened. If you knew Stan, you were aware that Stan was the most deliberate checklist writer of anyone in our hobby. He was born in Maine, educated at the…
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Lewis H. “Dude” Larsen
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Cowboy art and artists mesmerized the tourists of the mid-20th century. Wild west shows were the rage and souvenirs of travel west of the Mississippi River have become the rage in antique shops and malls. L. H. Larsen postcards are easy to find and inexpensive. Join the fun; search for Dude Larsen postcards.
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Meet the Lady Known as “La Belle”
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The early 20th century was an era when young women who were willing to flaunt their private “attributes” could win the affection of many men the likes of whom could be stable-boys to kings. Caroline Otéro was one such lady. Men loved her; women were jealous. Meet the women known as “La Belle.”
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Dravo Corporation and the US Navy
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The Delaware Valley’s second city, Wilmington, Delaware, was the home of the Dravo Corporation. At a time when the country needed ships, Dravo built eight vessels that helped win World War II. Learn their histories from these thumb-nail bios.
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Bookmark Postcards
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Recently a collection of eight Reutlinger (the well-known publisher in Paris) postcards came to my attention. I have seen bookmark size cards often, but these interested me because seven of the eight appear to be addressed by the same hand to Mademoiselles at addresses in the Cher Department, a French “region,” in West-Central France that…
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A Memoir of a Listener
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Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich’s exceptional career was launched in 1926 with the premiereof his first symphony – his graduation piece. He quickly established himself at the forefront of young Soviet composers. In the years since, his music has been a major component in every symphony orchestra’s repertoire – classical music for those who claim to not…
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Myra Hess
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In wartime strange things happen. As bombs fell on London, musicians the likes of Myra Hess and dozens of others performed concerts in the empty National Gallery for audiences seldom seen in London’s concert halls.
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Two Rhode Island Postcards
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On a week-end trip to New England, we stayed in a lovely B&B along a beautiful inlet of Narragansett Bay, In an antique shop nearby these two cards called to me. I know you will enjoy them, too!
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Frank Furness, Philadelphian
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Walking into a building for the first time seldom prompts the question, who was the architect? Names like Wright, van der Rohe, Gropius, Pei and Fuller come to mind, but Furness? – not so much. Frank Furness isn’t well known beyond his home town of Philadelphia, but his forty year career brought over six-hundred homes,…
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1949: it was a very good year!
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The wines of France set the standard for the world for many centuries, and today the French are still center stage in pleasing wine drinker around the world. Go get a glass of hardy red and enjoy this story of the 1949 Pommard.
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The Cayuga County Totem Tree
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FYI: Cayuga County, NY, is the center-most of the three counties that form New York State’s Finger Lake Region. Some of New York’s finest vineyards are in Cayuga County where wines are made that have won awards worldwide. This postcard truly tells its own story from the caption on the back, the sender’s message and…
