A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope and at a lower rate than a letter. Stamp collectors distinguish between postcards (which require a stamp) and postal cards (which have the postage pre-printed on them). While a postcard is usually printed by a private company, individual or organization, a postal card is issued by the relevant postal authority. The United States Postal Service defines a postcard as: rectangular, at least 3-? inches high x 5 inches long x .007 inch thick and no more than 4-? inches high x 6 inches long x .016 inches thick; however, some postcards have deviated from this (for example, shaped postcards).

The study and collecting of postcards is termed deltiology.

In the art world the postcard can also be translated into an art object. The art form is called mail art.

Brief history of postcards in the United States

John P. Charlton of Philadelphia patented the postcard in 1861, selling the rights to H. L. Lipman, whose postcards, complete with a decorated border, were labeled "Lipman's postal card." Nine years later European countries were also producing postcards.

The United States Postal Service began issuing pre-stamped postal cards in 1873. The postal cards came about because the public was looking for an easier way to send quick notes. The USPS was the only establishment allowed to print postcards, and it held its monopoly until May 19, 1898, when Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act which allowed private publishers and printers to produce postcards.

Initially, the United States government prohibited private companies from calling their cards postcards, so they were known as souvenir cards. Although, in 1901, this prohibition was rescinded, not until 1908 could people write on the address side of a postcard.

The first postcard in the United States was created in 1893 to advertise the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Shortly thereafter the United States government, via the United States Postal Service, allowed printers to publish a 1-cent postcard (the "Penny Postcard"). A correspondent's writing was allowed only on the front side of these cards.

Postcards, in the form of government postal cards and privately printed souvenir cards, became very popular as a result of the Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, after postcards featuring buildings were distributed at the fair. In 1908, more than 677 million postcards were mailed.

1901 brought cards with the word "Post Card" printed on the reverse (the side without the picture). Written messages were still restricted to the front side, with the entire back dedicated to the address. This "undivided back" is what gives this postcard era its name.

The "divided back" card, with space for a message on the address side, came into use in the United States in 1907. The back is divided into two sections, the left section being used for the message and the right for the address. Thus began the Golden Age of American postcards, which lasted until about 1915, when World War I blocked the import of the fine German-printed cards.

The "white border" era, named for obvious reasons, lasted from about 1916 to 1930. The "linen card" era lasted from about 1930 to 1945, when cards were primarily printed on papers with a high rag content. The last and current postcard era, which began about 1939, is the "photochrome" or "chrome" era. The images on these cards are generally based on colored photographs, and are readily identified by the glossy appearance given by the paper's coating.

In France, erotic postcards appeared in 1910.

In 1973 the British Post Office introduced a new type of card, PHQ Cards, these have since become a popular collecting area, especially when they have the appropriate stamp affixed and a First day of issue postmark obtained.

British seaside postcards

In 1894, British publishers were given permission by the Royal Mail to manufacture and distribute picture postcards, which could be sent through the post. Early postcards were pictures of famous landmarks, scenic views, photographs or drawings of celebrities and so on. With steam locomotives providing fast and affordable travel, the seaside became a popular tourist destination, and generated its own souvenir-industry: the picture postcard was, and is, an essential staple of this industry.

In the early 1930s, cartoon-style saucy postcards became widespread, and at the peak of their popularity the sale of saucy postcards reached a massive 16 million a year. They were often bawdy in nature, making use of innuendo and double entendres and traditionally featured stereotypical characters such as vicars, large ladies and put-upon husbands, in the same vein as the Carry On films. In the early 1950s, the newly elected Conservative government were concerned at the apparent deterioration of morals in Britain and decided on a crackdown on these postcards. The main target on their hit list was the renowned postcard artist Donald McGill. In the more liberal 1960s, the saucy postcard was revived and became to be considered, by some, as an art form. This helped its popularity and once again they became an institution. However, during the 1970s and 1980s, the quality of the artwork and humour started to deteriorate and, with changing attitudes towards the cards' content, the demise of the saucy postcard occurred. Original postcards are now highly sought after, and rare examples can command high prices at auction. The best-known saucy seaside postcards were created by a publishing company called Bamforths, based in the town of Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, England. Despite the decline in popularity of postcards that are overtly 'saucy', postcards continue to be a significant economic and cultural aspect of British seaside tourism. Sold by newsagents and street vendors, as well as by specialist souvenir shops, modern seaside postcards often feature multiple depictions of the resort in unusually favourable weather conditions. The use of saturated colour, and a general departure from realism, have made the postcards of the later twentieth century become collected and admired as kitsch. Such cards are also respected as important documents of social history, and have been influential on the work of Martin Parr.

Early Controversy

The initial appearance of picture postcards (and the enthusiasm with which the new medium was embraced) raised some legal issues that can be seen as precursors to later controversies over the internet. Picture postcards allowed and encouraged many individuals to send images across national borders, and the legal availability of a postcard image in one country did not guarantee that the card would be considered "proper" in the destination country, or in the intermediate countries that the card would have to pass through. Some countries might refuse to handle postcards containing sexual references (in seaside postcards) or images of full or partial nudity (for instance, in images of classical statuary or paintings).

In response to this new phenomenon, the Ottoman Empire banned the sale or importation of some materials relating to the Prophet Mohammed in 1900. Affected postcards that were successfully sent through the OE before this date (and are postmarked accordingly) have a high rarity value and are considered valuable by collectors.

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Deltiology

Deltiolgy, the formal name in the U.S. for postcard collecting, is currently the third largest collectable hobby in the world. It is surpassed only by coin and stamp collecting (in the U.S. baseball collecting is greater, but that is a national past-time not worldwide). The popularity of post cards can be attributed to their broad subject appeal. Almost any subject imaginable has been, at some time, portrayed on a postcard. The broad subject range comes as a result of the social usage cards were designed for. Postcards continue today to be the most popular form of souvenir for travelers as well as economical means of communication both personal and business related. BELOW: Click on links to view pictures, then use your back button to return. The History of Postcards Pre-Postcard Era, 1840 - 1869

Due to government postal regulations, postcards were a long time in developing. Prior to postcards came the lithograph print, woodcuts and broadsides. The direct ancestor seems to be the envelopes printed with pictures on them. These first envelopes were produced by D. William Mulready, E.R.W. Hume, Dickey Doyle, and James Valentine. The envelopes were often printed with pictures of comics, Valentines and music. Thousands of patriotic pictures appeared on U.S. envelopes during the Civil War period of 1861-1865, these are now known as Patriotic Covers. The first postal type card in this country was a privately printed card copyrighted in 1861 by J.P. Carlton. This copyright was later transferred to H.L. Lipman. The "Lipman Postal Cards", as we now call them, were on sale until replaced in 1873 by the U.S. Government Postals. Pioneer Era, 1870-1898

The first postal card was suggested by Dr. Emanuel Herrmann, in 1869, and was accepted by the Hungarian government in the same year. The first regularly printed card appeared in 1870, a historical card, produced in connection with the Franco-German War. The first advertising card appeared in 1872 in Great Britain. The first German card appeared in 1874. Cards showing the Eiffel Tower in 1889 & 1890 gave impetus to the postcard heyday a decade later. A Heligoland card of 1889 is considered the first multi-colored card ever printed.

In this country, the earliest known exposition card appeared in 1873, showing the main building of the Inter-State Industrial Exposition in Chicago. This card as well as other early advertising cards, usually bearing vignette designs were not originally intended for souvenirs. Thus the first card printed with the intention for use as a souvenir were the cards placed on sale in 1893 at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. During this period all privately printed cards required the regular two cent letter rate postage, the new government printed Postals required only one cent. Private Mailing Card Era, 1898-1901

Starting in 1898, American publishers were allowed to print and sell cards bearing the inscription, "Private Mailing Card, Authorized by Act of Congress on May 19, 1898". These private mailing cards were to be posted with one cent stamps ( the same rate a government postals). This was perhaps the most significant event to enhance the use of private postals. As with government postals and previous pioneer cards, writing was still reserved for the front (picture side) of the cards only.

Undivided Back Era, 1901-1907

In 1901, the U.S. Government granted the use of the words "Post Card" to be printed on the undivided back of privately printed cards and allowed publishers to drop the authorization inscription previously required. As in earlier eras, writing was still limited to the front. However, during this time, other countries began to permit the use of a divided back. This enabled the front to be used exclusively for the design, while the back was divided so that the left side was for writing messages and the right side for the address. England was the first to permit the divided back in 1902, France followed in 1904, Germany in 1905 and finally the U.S. in 1907. These changes ushered in the "Golden Age" of postcards as millions were sold and used. Divided Back Era, 1907-1915

By this period, divided backs were almost universal, except in a few monopolistic governments. Previous to and during this period, a majority of U.S. postcards were printed in Europe, especially in Germany whose printing methods were regarded as the best in the world. However the trying years of this period, the rising import tariffs and the threats of war, caused a swift decline in the cards imported. Thus the political strains of the day brought about the end of the "Golden Age". Early Modern Era (White Border), 1916-1930

During this period, American technology advanced allowing us to produce quality cards, although we often produced inferior ones in order to compete in the saturated market place. Public appeal changed and greeting card publication declined. However the view card market remained strong. The cards of this era were usually printed with white borders around the picture, thus the term "White Border Cards". Linen Card Era, 1930-1945

Changing technology now enabled publishers to print cards on a linen type paper stock with very bright and vivid colors. View and comic cards were the most often published. Sets and series were few and far between and the greeting card was almost exclusively replaced with the new French-fold cards. Among the best cards of this era are the political humor cards of World War II. Photochrome Era, 1939-present

The Union Oil Series began in 1939, launching the new era of photochrome cards. Photochromes are commonly called "Modern Chromes", are still the most popular cards today. Since the earlier days of fine printing craftsmanship, these are the best reproductions to come along in years. Collectors are expressing interest in these cards. Also despite the increase in postal rates for postcards from one cent to the current twenty-three cents, postcard popularity continues to rise. Even the greeting post card is making a big return, though usually seen as reproductions of old cards, more and more new original art is being produced. Postcard Types View Cards

View cards have, since postcards began, been the mainstay of the collecting field. People have long collected and traded cards of their home towns and places they have visited. View cards offer historic reference to buildings, streets, and even towns which may no longer exist or that have changed significantly over time. Even views produced in the photochrome (chrome) era may no longer look the same. The earliest cards offer much in the social history of the times as we look at early forms of travel and the beginnings of telegraph, telephone and power lines. The messages written on the cards often give us insight as to the picture shown or the sentiments of the day. Greeting Cards

The greeting card is almost as basic as the view card in the earlier eras, though as the time graph has shown, it's popularity declined in later era's. Christmas, Easter, Birthdays and most other holidays and special occasions were well represented and are fairly common. However some greetings such as the "Labor Day" cards, are considered scarce. Today most collectors choose a topic within a specific holiday in order to limit their searches. For example some choose Christmas cards depicting Santa in green robes only. Early greeting cards are some of the most beautiful cards every printed. Publishers competing for sales, printed cards using intricate embossing techniques, high caliber art work, superior inks, expensive lithographic processes and even novelty additions such as glitter, ribbons, silk and feathers. Historical Cards

Historical cards are printed to commemorate events such as war, social problems, expositions, parades, coronations, politics...These cards offer much to the serious collector in the way of increased value. This is a wide open field with much to offer anyone interested in twentieth century history. Often this type of card was made of a real photograph with few copies being offered for sale. This is especially true of disaster cards depicting floods, fires, wrecks...Often the historical significance of a card comes form the message written by the sender. Art Cards

The art card is probably the most important category in antique postcards. Unlike the view or greeting card, most art cards were special interest cards when they were printed and in most cases brought a much higher price. This rarity, combined with the skill of the artist of this period, make these cards very popular among collectors today. To better understand this popularity, think of these cards as 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" original high quality prints, which they are, instead of as postcards. No where in the world of art, does such quality material exist at such low prices. The postcard market, in the first decade of this century, was a very large business. Over $200,000,000 in pre-inflation dollars! This booming market drew the very best artists of the period, creating a wealth of quality material unmatched in the art world. Also at this time, some German publishers produced a series of "Old Master" art reproductions, the card's intensity and depth of color is without parallel as they spared no expense in printing the best. Photographic Cards

Coming into their own recognition as art cards are the fantastic photographic art cards. These real photo art studies of beautiful women, children, lovers...are often hand tinted in great detail and in colors which almost defy description. Also made popular were the photomatage techniques which allowed photos to be altered into original art creations. Conclusion

Postcard collecting is a lot of fun and a good investment, as millions world-wide will attest. The antique cards are beautiful and historical. Cards have been printed on everything from metal, leather, wood, plastic, to fine silk. Some cards have been individually hand-made or painted. Some have autographs of important personalities. Some will make you laugh while others will make you cry. From Nazi Germany to Sunday School notices and from woman Suffrage to KKK cards. From Clapsaddle children to Kirchner nudes. From tiny Tiger Georgia to New York City. From cute puppy dogs to exotic wildlife. All races, religions, nationalities, social groups, topics and holidays have been shown. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly! So whatever your interests, Happy Collecting....Vickie

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A Brief History of Postcard Types

When did the use of Postcards start? A copyright on a private postal card was issued to John P. Charlton of Philadelphia as early as 1861, later transferred to his fellow townsman, H.L. Lipman. These early cards, decorated with a slight border pattern and labeled "Lipman's postal card, patent applied for", were for sale until 1873 when the first government postcards appeared. Plain postcards were in use well before that. They were issued by the post offices of various countries with the country's stamp imprinted on them. They are referred to as "Postals". The first appearance of a non-postal "postcard" that was privately produced to which postage must be affixed, is accredited to occurring in Austria in 1869. By 1870 picture postcards were being published in limited quantities throughout Europe. Until recently, it was thought that U.S. postcard use lagged farther behind that of European usage.

NOTE: Writings were not permitted by law on the address side of any postcard until March 1, 1907. For this reason many postcards up to 1907 have messages across their fronts. Writing on the front of early postcards is not a fault. Pioneer Era (Pre 1898) It used to be thought that "most" pioneer cards began with the colorful postcards placed on sale at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, on May 1, 1893. Those postcards are of illustrations of buildings and views of the Exposition printed on government postal cards and those printed on privately published souvenir cards. The government postal cards had a printed 1 cent stamp while the souvenir cards required a 2 cent postage stamp to be applied to them.

Recent detailed studies by advanced collectors have shed light on even earlier advertising postcards in this early postcard era. The greatest concentration of these postcards are from New York, Philadelphia, and other large metro areas in the U.S. and abroad. The earliest known postcard (as of Sept. 1996) is postmarked Dec. 1848! No doubt the further study of this area of postcard collecting will reveal many more postcards from the 1848 to 1893 time line.

Most pre-1898 postcards share a few common traits: The postcard of this era is characterized by an undivided back (no line going down the center of the back of the postcard), and many contain printed lines on the back for the name of the addressee and his address only. Pioneer U.S. postcards are mostly from big Eastern cities.

Side Note: During this time only the government was allowed to use the word "POSTCARD" (one word) on the back of the postcard. Privately published postcards in this era will have the titles "Souvenir Card", "Correspondence Card", or "Mail Card" on the back. Government cards will also have an imprinted Grant or Jefferson head 1 cent stamp on them. Private postcards required a 2 cent postage. Private Mailing Card Era (1898 to Dec. 24, 1901) On May 19, 1898, by an act of Congress, private printers were granted permission to print and sell cards that bore the inscription "Private Mailing Card". We call these cards "PMC's". Many early Pioneer postcards were reprinted as PMC's. Postcards of this era have undivided backs. During this period around 1900, Real Photo postcards (RPs, postcards on film stock: i.e. pictures) began to filter in use. These early real photo images were mainly advertising pieces.

Note: In 1898 postage required for mailing a postcard was reduced from 2 cents to 1 cent. Click here for an example Undivided Back "Postcard" Era (Dec. 24, 1901 to March 1, 1907) The use of the word "POST CARD/POSTCARD" (as one or two words) was granted by the government to private printers on Dec. 24, 1901. Writing was still not permitted on the address side. The publishing of printed postcards during this time frame doubled almost every six months. European publishers opened offices in the U.S. and imported millions of high quality postcards. By 1907, European publishers accounted for over 75% of all postcards sold in the U.S. The vogue of lithographed cards caught Eastman-Kodak's attention as well. They issued an affordable "Folding Pocket Kodak" camera around 1906. This allowed the mass public to take black & white photographs and have them printed directly onto paper with postcard backs. Various other models of Kodak "postcard" cameras followed igniting a real photo postcard era. These cameras shared two neat features: their negatives were postcard size (the major reason why so many of these images are so clear) and they had a small thin door on the rear of their bodies that, when lifted, enabled the photographer to write an identifing caption or comment on the negative itself with an attached metal scribe.

Note: At the end of this period in time, the picture postcard hobby became the greatest collectible hobby that the World has ever known. The official figures from the U.S. Post Office for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, cite 677,777,798 postcard mailed. That was at a time when the total population of the U.S. was 88,700,000. Click here for an example Divided Back Era (March 1, 1907 to 1915) (Golden Age) Postcards with a divided back were finally permitted on March 1, 1907. The address had to be written on the right side of the back of the postcard while the left side was reserved for writing messages. Postcards from this period are most collectible when they do not have writing on their fronts. At this time in American history the postcard hobby became a public addiction. Publishers printed millions of cards in this era. Most postcards were printed in Germany, the world leader in lithographic processes. At the height of the country wide mania, WWI caused a crash in the hobby. The advent of WWI caused the supply of postcards from Germany to end. Poorer quality postcards came from English and U.S. publishers. The lowered quality of the printed postcard, recurrent influenza epidemics, and WWI war shortages killed the American postcard hobby. During the war years the telephone replaced the postcard as a fast, reliable means to keep in touch. Click here for an example White Border Era (1915-1930) After WWI, the German publishing industry was never rebuilt. Other European publishers were forced out of the U.S. market by high tariff rates. Most locally available postcards were printed by U.S. publishers during this period. On view postcards, to save ink, a white border was left around the view, thus we call them "White Border" postcards. The higher costs of post-war publishing combined with inexperienced labor caused production of poorer quality cards. The public rapidly lost interest. "Movies" replaced postcards as a visual experience. Higher competition in a rapidly narrowing market caused many publishers to go out of business. Real photo postcard publishers, on the other hand, enjoyed great success. Various types of rotary drum negative imprinters allowed runs of 1000s of postcards of a particular image. Roadside postcard racks contained a great variety of these images.

Note: Another notable exception to the "poor quality" of this time frame are the European "Hand Tinted" postcards of France and Belgium. These were photo postcards of all topics and subjects which were colored by hand to lend a realistic or stylized look. Some are truly works of art. Unfortunately this brief era ended abruptly also. Coloring of the postcards was accomplished by teams of trained women artists sitting in a circle or row in a room. The postcard images were passed down the line from one girl to another, each being responsible for one color. To get the fine detail needed for working on the relatively small postcard images, the women wetted the tip of their cotton covered brushes with their lips as they worked. Eventually the lead in the paint they used led to illnesses forcing the discontinuation of this type of postcard. Click here for an example Linen Era (1930-1945 (1960?)) New American printing processes allowed printing on postcards with a high rag content. This was a marked improvement over the "White Border" postcard. The rag content also gave these postcards a textured "feel". They were also cheaper to produce and allowed the use of bright dyes for image coloring. They proved to be extremely popular with raodside establishments seeking cheap advertising. Linen postcards document every step along the way of the building of America's highway infra-structure. Most notable among the early linen publishers was the firm of Curt Teich. The majority of linen postcard production ended around 1939 with the advent of the color "chrome" postcard. However, a few linen firms (mainly southern) published until well into the late 50s. Real photo publishers of black & white images continued to have success. Faster reproducing equipment and lowering costs led to an explosion of real photo mass produced postcards. Once again a war interferred with the postcard industry (WWII). During the war, shortages and a need for military personnel forced many postcard companies to reprint older views WHEN printing material was available. Click here for an example Photochrome Era (1939 to present) The Wizard of Oz affirmed America's love for color images. A new type of postcard, the color "Photochrome" (called Chrome) appeared around 1939. These "Chrome" postcards started to dominate the scene soon after they were launched by the Union Oil Company in their western service stations in 1939. They were easily produced, of high photo quality and most importantly, they were in color. Their spread was momentarily slowed down during WWII due to supply shortages, but they replaced both linen and black & white postcards by 1945 in the roadside postcard racks. Linen firms converted to photochrome postcards or went out of business. Black & white postcard firms merged with larger companies or disappeared.

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A Brief History of Postcard Types

When did the use of Postcards start? A copyright on a private postal card was issued to John P. Charlton of Philadelphia as early as 1861, later transferred to his fellow townsman, H.L. Lipman. These early cards, decorated with a slight border pattern and labeled "Lipman's postal card, patent applied for", were for sale until 1873 when the first government postcards appeared. Plain postcards were in use well before that. They were issued by the post offices of various countries with the country's stamp imprinted on them. They are referred to as "Postals". The first appearance of a non-postal "postcard" that was privately produced to which postage must be affixed, is accredited to occurring in Austria in 1869. By 1870 picture postcards were being published in limited quantities throughout Europe. Until recently, it was thought that U.S. postcard use lagged farther behind that of European usage.

NOTE: Writings were not permitted by law on the address side of any postcard until March 1, 1907. For this reason many postcards up to 1907 have messages across their fronts. Writing on the front of early postcards is not a fault. Pioneer Era (Pre 1898) It used to be thought that "most" pioneer cards began with the colorful postcards placed on sale at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, on May 1, 1893. Those postcards are of illustrations of buildings and views of the Exposition printed on government postal cards and those printed on privately published souvenir cards. The government postal cards had a printed 1 cent stamp while the souvenir cards required a 2 cent postage stamp to be applied to them.

Recent detailed studies by advanced collectors have shed light on even earlier advertising postcards in this early postcard era. The greatest concentration of these postcards are from New York, Philadelphia, and other large metro areas in the U.S. and abroad. The earliest known postcard (as of Sept. 1996) is postmarked Dec. 1848! No doubt the further study of this area of postcard collecting will reveal many more postcards from the 1848 to 1893 time line.

Most pre-1898 postcards share a few common traits: The postcard of this era is characterized by an undivided back (no line going down the center of the back of the postcard), and many contain printed lines on the back for the name of the addressee and his address only. Pioneer U.S. postcards are mostly from big Eastern cities.

Side Note: During this time only the government was allowed to use the word "POSTCARD" (one word) on the back of the postcard. Privately published postcards in this era will have the titles "Souvenir Card", "Correspondence Card", or "Mail Card" on the back. Government cards will also have an imprinted Grant or Jefferson head 1 cent stamp on them. Private postcards required a 2 cent postage. Private Mailing Card Era (1898 to Dec. 24, 1901) On May 19, 1898, by an act of Congress, private printers were granted permission to print and sell cards that bore the inscription "Private Mailing Card". We call these cards "PMC's". Many early Pioneer postcards were reprinted as PMC's. Postcards of this era have undivided backs. During this period around 1900, Real Photo postcards (RPs, postcards on film stock: i.e. pictures) began to filter in use. These early real photo images were mainly advertising pieces.

Note: In 1898 postage required for mailing a postcard was reduced from 2 cents to 1 cent. Click here for an example Undivided Back "Postcard" Era (Dec. 24, 1901 to March 1, 1907) The use of the word "POST CARD/POSTCARD" (as one or two words) was granted by the government to private printers on Dec. 24, 1901. Writing was still not permitted on the address side. The publishing of printed postcards during this time frame doubled almost every six months. European publishers opened offices in the U.S. and imported millions of high quality postcards. By 1907, European publishers accounted for over 75% of all postcards sold in the U.S. The vogue of lithographed cards caught Eastman-Kodak's attention as well. They issued an affordable "Folding Pocket Kodak" camera around 1906. This allowed the mass public to take black & white photographs and have them printed directly onto paper with postcard backs. Various other models of Kodak "postcard" cameras followed igniting a real photo postcard era. These cameras shared two neat features: their negatives were postcard size (the major reason why so many of these images are so clear) and they had a small thin door on the rear of their bodies that, when lifted, enabled the photographer to write an identifing caption or comment on the negative itself with an attached metal scribe.

Note: At the end of this period in time, the picture postcard hobby became the greatest collectible hobby that the World has ever known. The official figures from the U.S. Post Office for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, cite 677,777,798 postcard mailed. That was at a time when the total population of the U.S. was 88,700,000. Click here for an example Divided Back Era (March 1, 1907 to 1915) (Golden Age) Postcards with a divided back were finally permitted on March 1, 1907. The address had to be written on the right side of the back of the postcard while the left side was reserved for writing messages. Postcards from this period are most collectible when they do not have writing on their fronts. At this time in American history the postcard hobby became a public addiction. Publishers printed millions of cards in this era. Most postcards were printed in Germany, the world leader in lithographic processes. At the height of the country wide mania, WWI caused a crash in the hobby. The advent of WWI caused the supply of postcards from Germany to end. Poorer quality postcards came from English and U.S. publishers. The lowered quality of the printed postcard, recurrent influenza epidemics, and WWI war shortages killed the American postcard hobby. During the war years the telephone replaced the postcard as a fast, reliable means to keep in touch. Click here for an example White Border Era (1915-1930) After WWI, the German publishing industry was never rebuilt. Other European publishers were forced out of the U.S. market by high tariff rates. Most locally available postcards were printed by U.S. publishers during this period. On view postcards, to save ink, a white border was left around the view, thus we call them "White Border" postcards. The higher costs of post-war publishing combined with inexperienced labor caused production of poorer quality cards. The public rapidly lost interest. "Movies" replaced postcards as a visual experience. Higher competition in a rapidly narrowing market caused many publishers to go out of business. Real photo postcard publishers, on the other hand, enjoyed great success. Various types of rotary drum negative imprinters allowed runs of 1000s of postcards of a particular image. Roadside postcard racks contained a great variety of these images.

Note: Another notable exception to the "poor quality" of this time frame are the European "Hand Tinted" postcards of France and Belgium. These were photo postcards of all topics and subjects which were colored by hand to lend a realistic or stylized look. Some are truly works of art. Unfortunately this brief era ended abruptly also. Coloring of the postcards was accomplished by teams of trained women artists sitting in a circle or row in a room. The postcard images were passed down the line from one girl to another, each being responsible for one color. To get the fine detail needed for working on the relatively small postcard images, the women wetted the tip of their cotton covered brushes with their lips as they worked. Eventually the lead in the paint they used led to illnesses forcing the discontinuation of this type of postcard. Click here for an example Linen Era (1930-1945 (1960?)) New American printing processes allowed printing on postcards with a high rag content. This was a marked improvement over the "White Border" postcard. The rag content also gave these postcards a textured "feel". They were also cheaper to produce and allowed the use of bright dyes for image coloring. They proved to be extremely popular with raodside establishments seeking cheap advertising. Linen postcards document every step along the way of the building of America's highway infra-structure. Most notable among the early linen publishers was the firm of Curt Teich. The majority of linen postcard production ended around 1939 with the advent of the color "chrome" postcard. However, a few linen firms (mainly southern) published until well into the late 50s. Real photo publishers of black & white images continued to have success. Faster reproducing equipment and lowering costs led to an explosion of real photo mass produced postcards. Once again a war interferred with the postcard industry (WWII). During the war, shortages and a need for military personnel forced many postcard companies to reprint older views WHEN printing material was available. Click here for an example Photochrome Era (1939 to present) The Wizard of Oz affirmed America's love for color images. A new type of postcard, the color "Photochrome" (called Chrome) appeared around 1939. These "Chrome" postcards started to dominate the scene soon after they were launched by the Union Oil Company in their western service stations in 1939. They were easily produced, of high photo quality and most importantly, they were in color. Their spread was momentarily slowed down during WWII due to supply shortages, but they replaced both linen and black & white postcards by 1945 in the roadside postcard racks. Linen firms converted to photochrome postcards or went out of business. Black & white postcard firms merged with larger companies or disappeared.

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Being impressed with the number and variety of the souvenir postal cards on sale in all the cities of Europe, I determined to write an article about them. After that it was a natural thought that such an article would be most entertainingly illustrated by reproductions of a few of the postal cards themselves. It will give some idea of the number of differing cards if I say that at the low prices at which they are solda cent and a half to twelve cents eachI found that the outlay necessary to obtain anything like a representative collection would reach a really considerable sum of money.

In one celebrated German watering place, where all the shops are upon a single long street, every third window displays these cards for sale, yet I do not remember that any two shops showed similar cards. Only a few displayed cards of a similar class or order. I speak of classes or orders in this wise because these souvenirs are of varying descriptions: the comic, the sentimental, the purely artistic, the scenic, the architectural, the heraldic, the coarse; those illustrating classic poetry, classic fiction, fairy tales and local legends; those forming galleries of the famous heroes of the past and present, of royalties, of the musical composers, of the poets and authors, of copies of the masterpieces of of art, of the celebrities of the stage, of the reigning beauties, and of many other general types, scenes and subjects.

To instance merely classes or kinds of postal, I counted in a shop in Vienna one hundred and seventy-nine sets. Had I been able to count the different cards in each of these series, the sum would have run high into the thousands.

The Germans are fondest of these souvenirs, the French much less so, the English still less. The French outside Paris make a comparatively thin exhibit of these instructive, amusing or purely artistic trophies for tourists, and one seldom sees the French people using them. I fancy that the masses there are too thrifty to spend double as much as is actually necessary when writing a message for the post. In England one see pictures of St. Paul's. the Tower. the Tower Bridge, Temple Bar, and indeed of all the notable landmarks; a collection of military types; and an especial type seen nowhere else"illuminated cards" that show buildings and streets which, when the cards are held against the light, appear to be suffused with the glow of many lamps. The Marquis of Salisbury said in the House of Lords last summer that "the English are not an artistic people," and naturally one does not look for such a variety of beautiful, often truly artistic cards as the Germans, the French, the Dutch and the Italians produce.

But Germany is the land of the souvenir postal card, and the Germans and Austrians appear to use these cards almost as freely as the foreign tourists. I spent two months of the past year among the Germans, and I saw them writing on these cards everywherein the railway cars and stations, in the beer-halls and restaurant-gardens, in the shops and, indeed, in any place where pen or pencil could be had.

They have as much variety of size as of subject. Some are of the width of an ordinary postal card but are a yard in length; and others are the size of four copies of this magazine laid side by side so as to form a square. They show photographs of the entire waterfront of cities like Paris, vienna or Amsterdam, and can be mailed only by paying letter-postage.

The cards themselves are treated in every way in which it is possible to produce pictures at popular prices in great numbers. Indeed, some that I saw in Vienna were touched over with water-colors so as to produce the effect of original paintings. But the majority are either simple reproductions of photographs or wood-engravings.

In a word, then, the souvenir postal cards of Europe have the same scope and variety as was embraced by our St. Valentine's cards when the 14th of February was very popularly celebrated, a dozen or fifteen years ago. What we had in the way of valentines then, the Europeans enjoy in the form of souvenir postal cards to-day. But the European cards outnumber our valentines in the proportion of more than a hundred to one.

As I glance over my collection, I find that the first at hand are the celebrated character series of heroes and heroines. The reigning beauty of Paris is close to Charles I of England and the present Emperor of Germany. Actresses, led by Edna May, whose portrait is everywhere on the Continent, and beauties of the ballet and the various nobilities press close against one another; and then appears the grim head of the Iron Chancellor. There must be fully one hundred Bismarck cards that show his face, figure, country home at Friedrichshof, his great dogs, his statues, and so on. Queen Wilhelmina smiles at me above her gorgeous court costume. Columbus turns upon me those wide, aspiring eyes, the most hopeful pair that portraiture has ever shown; our latest martyred President is in this great gallery of tiny portraits; and so, of course, are Paulus Stephanus Johannes Kr?ger and the ever-mysterious General De Wet.

One of the portraits of Berlin manufacture, is that of an actress whose photograph is pasted in place in an elaborate colored lithograph. Its design is an example of the so-called Secession school, or L' Art Nouveaua graceful complexity of the stems, leaves and blossoms of the water-lily done in red and gold and blue. This card forms a connecting link between the portraits and the reproductions of the world-famous masterpieces. Of course, the collection contains the waitress, by Liotard, whom we call "the chocolate girl"; the Countess Potocka, by Anton Graff; Greuze's beautiful head of a girl; Mignard's portrait of Maria Mancini; the famous Queen Louise in the Cologne gallery and more of similar ones.

One Amann, in Munich, has done even finer work in reproducing modern German favorites of the painter's art, while from Leipsic and Munich come some very dainty, fanciful pictures of esthetic young women carrying flowers or blowing hearts in chains with the smoke of their cigarettes. Nuremburg issues a dainty set of cards with Watteauesque men and women for adornment, also a highly popular and robust series of full-sized flowers, each containing the beautiful face of a girl in its heart. An equally rich collection, seen everywhere in Europe, depicts types of the young womanhood of southern Europe in strong but well-chosen colors. Holland sends forth the never-ending never-tiresome water and sailboat scenes with which she has so long decorated her chinaware.

And here let me pause to say that there is little space left for writing upon any of the postal cards yet mentioned. Thus have they outgrown their original use and purpose and become merely souvenirs and works of art.

The French postal-card makers enrich this scattered gallery of tiny wandering pictures by an interesting series showing the costumes of the women of France in all ages. They also publish a Watteau series of printed woodcuts faintly colored after the exquisite manner of the early tinted engravings which are now so rare and costly. As one might expect, they do not disdain to publish a series of "les ?toiles des caf?s-concerts de Paris," showing the dubious "beauties" of such places as the Moulin Rouge at their hard and poorly paid work of amusing the tourists. These leave a space in which the masculine youth who knows no better may write the words "I've been there" before posting the cards to Terre Haute and Kalamazoo.

The Austrians, Germans, Prussians, Dutch, and French have all seized upon a photograph disseminated by the pro-Boer agitators showing an old burgher of the veldt and his ten sons armed and carrying cartridge-belts. Nothing that I have seen in the way of postal-card illustration equals the Vienna series called "Wiener Typen." This pictures the street arabs, loafers, peddlers, laundry girls, hackdrivers, laborers, and others of the humbler folk of the gay capital of Austria. The faces and costumes are true to nature, and one sees in those pictures such a set of "family likenesses" to the same folk in London and Berlin and New York that one is driven to conclude that the modern capitals are stamping their street children and work-children with very similar sets of faces. Such postal cards as these tell a story to those who receive them at home, and will always be popular and interesting.

The rudest pictures I have seen on any postal cards are also of human typesthe peasant folk of the Austrian Tyrol. It is impossible to reproduce or even to suggest them in this magazine (if one had the hardihood to wish to do so), for they are built up like a dressmaker's dummy. First there is the rough outline-drawing carved so deep as to raise the lines high above the surface of the card. A second and a third printing puts on the colors. bits of gaudy velvet are then pasted in the proper places to make the dresses and the breeches of the peasants, and after this, the men's buckles and the girls' bodices are rubbed over with gold-powder.

Of French seaside bathing-scenes on postal cards one series alone contains nearly two hundred pictures. The French, as a rule, confine these illustrations to pictures of women in very chic surf costumes, but the Germans are fondest of portraying love-scenes in the water and on the sandflirtations, gallant attendance on the lightly clad fair bathers, modern Aphrodites driving their admirers like horses, in teams, among the breakers. The evolutions of very fat men and women give great delight to the German artists and their patrons.

But when we touch upon the endless theme of the comic postal cards, my judgment bids me pause. The standards of taste are so different in Europe that one hardly likes even vaguely to describe pictures which, over there, are considered both innocent and humorous. Drunkenness is a favorite subject with the German comic artist, who also like to portray pigs in men's and women's clothing. They never tire of picturing women in pursuit of men, and these pictures are often really droll and harmless. One that I have before me shows four young girls in the guise of kittens seated around a cage in which a man is imprisoned. Another depicts two women under a slender tree the fruit of which is men. One woman shakes the tree and the other catches the falling fruit in her apron. In almost all there is printed the inevitable comic quatrain, often in dialect.

The sentimental cards, the juvenile cards and those which illustrate fairy tales are common German products, and are often tender and beautiful in the extreme. A baby in a stork's nest, with the great bird guarding and feeding the infant, is an idea that is played with in a score of cards, and these are appropriately used in congratulating a family on the birth of a son and heir.

But if I have suggested the variety of classes and the number of specimens of each class, I have done all that is necessary or profitable. Nothing better illustrates the growth in importance of the United States and the friendly feeling on the part of foreigners than the fact that I found President McKinley's portrait common to every national collection of cards, and Germany ran across a card which was our flag. It covered the entire card and was printed in the proper colors. At the top, upon the first three stripes, were the first staves of the tune of "Yankee Doodle," and across the card in golden script was the legend, "Glory to the Union."

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POSTAL carditis and allied collecting manias are working havoc among the inhabitants of the United States. The germs of these maladies, brought to this country in the baggage of tourists and immigrants, escaped quarantine regulations, and were propagated with amazing rapidity. A few of the pathogenic variety which had for decades been dormant have been by these foreign infections called again into activity and the result is a formidable epidemic. There is now no hamlet so remote which has not succumbed to the ravages of the microbe postale universelle, the bacillus rotula tabacae cinctura, the insecta viola, and other malevolent cranko-organisms. Unless such manifestations are checked, millions of persons of now normal lives and irreproachable habits will become victims of faddy degeneration of the brain.

The onset of these insidious diseases is often sudden, although there are basic weaknesses in human nature which make even enlightened races susceptible to attack. There is in all mankind a predisposition to gather ill-considered trifles, an incipient mania for cherishing the useless. Boys garner birds' eggs, door knobs, chalk, and miggles; girls assemble shreds and patches, buttons and marshmallow boxes. The man, if he gives free rein to his inclination is likely to become a chronic hoarder of beer labels, champagne corks, old fiddles, theater programs, or pewter mugs; while the feminine failing is led away in the pursuit of dress samples, crazy quilt squares, and progressive euchre prizes. Every man, woman and child is a collector at heart.

Those of us who do not shut the light out of the home with conch shells, lobster claws, stamp albums, and the what-nots accustomed to be found on the what-not, have an indulgent feeling toward persons afflicted with the more malignant forms of acquisitive insanity. If Smith is given to the unholy joys of the coupon craze, his friends know it sooner or later and confer upon him green and yellow slips which otherwise they might have refused to accept. The result is that Mrs. Smith finds the house so littered with moulded glass, celluloid handled cutlery and flameless lamps, that if she be a woman of spirit her only refuge is incendiarism. The man of high artistic ideals himself saves the colored labels on his perfectos to give to a friend, whose wife has an incurable inclination to paste these gold and red atrocities over creme-de-menthe bottles or on the outside of glass saucers.

It can be accepted then that collectively all mankind is demented, and that those whose attack of the mania for the worthless are less acute than that of others, show the milder forms by abetting the idiosyncrasies of their fellows.

By far the worst development of the prevailing pests is postal carditis, which effects the heart, paralyzes the reasoning faculties and abnormally increases the nerve. It had its origin in Germany, twenty years ago, but did not assume dangerous proportions there until 1897. Sporadic cases of it were observed in the United States and year 1900 saw the malady rapidly spread from one center of infection to another. It seems only yesterday that the postal cards were on view almost entirely at hotels which were patronized exclusively by foreigners or in little dingy shops in Third Avenue, or on the remote East Side. A population which had only recently come from outre mer purchased them to send to friends and relatives in Europe. Advertisements appeared in the Sunday newspapers, setting forth that certain Germans had for sale the rights of a "novelty." So as opium was introduced into China by the way of Hong Kong, virulent forms of the post card pest found their way to the United States by way of Munich and Berlin. Shrewd speculators imported these bits of pasteboard by the million and in fact large quantities of postal cards are still made abroad. Germany, where the output is constantly becoming more artistic, sends large consignments; England furnishes tons of the heavy humorous variety; France inflicts the piquantly flavored ones, while the United States grinds out halftone views, comics, and the high art variety, good, bad, worse and indifferent. Some of them are so high pictorially that they no longer hang in the shops of vendors because Anthony Comstock, who looks after the artistic health of the community, has ordered them to be destroyed. Tons of the pernicious varieties of postal cards have been burned by the authorities, and as transmission through the mails has been denied to them, the number of off color products is steadily decreasing.

It was the original idea of the souvenir postal card inventors to show that the sender was staying somewhere and was too indolent to say anything about it except to convey the intelligence that he had arrived. The motif of the souvenir postal card is the equivalent of "On again, off again, Finnegan."

The American tourist in Germany bought postal cards and sent them to his friends, because he observed that such was the custom of the country. If Hans traveled from Strasbourg to Munich for a day, it was his custom to communicate the fact by sending to Strasbourg a picture of the largest art gallery or something of the kind. If Fritz left Munich for a journey to Strasbourg he was sure to send back to inquiring friends a picture of the clock, for which the municipality is noted. In fact the primitive kind of postal cards bore only views of buildings, scenery, and an assortment of facades of hotels and museums. When everything worth seeing had been photographed, the makers put on the market and on the backs of postal cards, actresses, paintings, illustrated poemsin fact almost anything.

The name of the man who stopped throwing postal cards into the waste basket or scattering their fragments in the street as soon as he got them is justly lost in oblivion. It was not long, however, after the craze had seized upon the human race that the fad for collecting its objects grew apace. As the purpose of these souvenirs is to show that the possessor of them has received a greeting from somebody somewhere, the cards are considered incomplete unless they have been sent through the mails and have been properly postmarked. To the collector, a bit of pasteboard which has not received the imprimatur of the post-office is a useless as a blank in the government mint before it has been decorated by the impress of the die. The postal fiend will not thank you for sending him a package of unstamped picture cards, fresh from the store. Not only must they be properly mailed, but they are considered imperfect if the postmark should happen to be on the back instead of on the face. Scores of complaints are received in the course of a year at the New York post office from collectors who have received cards which have been postmarked after the manner pursued with regard to letters. These causes of dissatisfaction were made known by the recipients of the wrongly stamped pasteboards to the postmaster general, to whom the evidence was sent. Investigation was made concerning each case, and now it is only at very rare intervals, possibly once in three months, that a wail from the cardomaniacs reaches a paternal government.

It often happens that collectors, either through their unfortunate habits or owing to circumstances over which they have no control, have not enough friends to increase their hoards in a normal manner. Hundreds of them haunt establishments where the causes of their besetting sin ar exposed for sale, select such as strike their fancy, stamp them and mail them to their own addresses, so that the addition to their exhibits may be entered in regular form. a woman from Georgia recently purchased in a Sixth avenue store, in New York, one hundred and fifty dollars' worth of these cards, representing between five and six thousand specimens, and carefully forwarded them to herself.

With an ingenuity worthy of a better cause, dealers have abetted this form of insanity by inventing new and diabolical designs of postal cards, as well as albums, racks and other means of preserving them. a favorite device is the album. The specimens to be retained are placed in slits so they may be removed in a second should their owner wish to demonstrate that they were actually mailed. The postal card fiend, in addition to his other abnormalities, is often an expert forger, for he will frequently counterfeit the handwriting of real and imaginary friends and acquaintances in order to give the proper semblance of authenticity to his collection.

One of the methods of inflicting the fad on the attention of visitors is the postal card sofa-pillow, which consists of specimens of the leather variety sewed together in an insane patchwork. Postal cards are also made of blocks of wood or heavy thicknesses of papier-mach?, which are scooped out in order to give receptacles in which may be concealed strips of photographs and pictures.

These monstrosities are often bestowed on the center table in the parlor, and about the only thing that can be said in their defense is that they crowd off the plush thesaurus of family celebrities. Manufacturers have recently offered for sale frames, the exact size of a postal, in which some gem valued by gentle lunatics may be displayed on the walls of dens or parlors. I have seen many such collections, which bear testimony to the mental lapses of carditis sufferers. When the crisis in the disease is reached the victims have been known to decorate all the available surface of their living apartments except the ceilings.

One of the most complete collections was harbored in the narrow hall bed-room of a notorious murderer in New York, who had converted his habitat into a box, the sides of which were veritable mosaics.

Contributory negligence has resulted in the spread of this mania, according to various postal mortem confessions. The private mailing device is the refuge of the lazy correspondent. If he travels, all the word which he usually sends to his family is scribbled under the pictures which are offered for sale in the hotel news-stands. Sometimes he finds a half-tone print of the hostelry at which he is stopping. A Maltese design on one of the windows, and a scrawl, "Cross shows room. Regards to Broadway," takes the place of a letter to which the writer was wont to say that he took a pen in hand to let his dear ones know that he was well, and to inscribe the hope that they were enjoying the same good health. the record of such desultory correspondence is often kept by the household of the derelict husband or father, sometimes as a card index of his wanderings, or, in many instances, it is conserved with that melancholy interest which attaches to the jar containing the ashes of the departed. No person can ever be what he once was after he has been inoculated with the virus of private mailing card mania.

From small beginnings the pasteboard souvenir industry has fattened upon epistolary sloth and collecting manias until there are extant in this country to-day 150.000 varieties of picture postal cards. Bookstores which formerly did a thriving trade in literature are now devoted almost entirely to their sale. There were in Atlantic City last season ten establishments where nothing else was sold, and Chicago, Boston, Pittsburg and New York have emporiums where postals constitute the entire stock. The American Athens had a postal card exhibition which vied with the Whistler picture show for public attention. These wares may be seen in New York on practically every street corner and most of the drug stores, cigar stands, hotels, barber shops and department store gridirons are interested in their sale. Ten large factories are working overtime in this country to supply the demand and many smaller ones are selling their output as fast as it is produced.

The methods used by manufacturers and dealers to stimulate the demand for private mailing cards are low cunning itself. They know that for every card which is sent from centers of civilization to country places that another one is likely to return. Mr. Knickerbocker sends to his brother Reuben in Tenafly, N. J., for instance, a picture of the city hall. The inmates of that New Jersey suburb awake to the fact in this way that they have no postal cards which set forth the glories of their native place. They see the local stationer about it and prevail upon him to have some made. He sends a small order for private mailing cards, depicting the main street, or the Deer's Leap, or the Lovers' Tryst, of Tenafly, to New York, and in the course of time receives a few hundred germ-laden specimens. The manufacturer who receives that order is in high glee, and he willingly will make the first consignment at a loss, for he knows that when the pest takes hold of a community it cannot be stayed. The pastor of the Baptist church at Lone Pine prevails upon the stationer to have the edifice over which he presides placed on a postal card. The "Second Adventist" leader sees it and demands why such favoritism has been shown. Tea Neck and Peapack, New Jersey, hear that Hohokus has been immortalized, and they are consumed by the pang of jealousy, which is one of the premonitory symptoms of postal carditis. Heart burnings, rancor, spite and all fault findings stimulate the spread of souvenir dementia and fill the coffers of dealers and manufacturers.

So greatly are the mails burdened with cards that this mania has already become the subject of official investigation. It has increased the number of postals by fully thirty-five per cent in the United States, while a large part of the mail arriving here from abroad is made up of these mementoes. There is now a movement on foot here to have all postal cards from the other side placed in separate bags so as to save the enormous amount of labor now entailed by picking them out of the regular mail.

To the boom in picture post cards the postmaster general of Great Britain ascribes a decrease of one-half per cent in the number of letters delivered last year in London. There were delivered in the United Kingdom 734,500,000 postalsan increase of nearly twenty per cent and of these eighty per cent were privately printed. The per capita allowance of postal cards in the Kingdom would be seventeen to each person. In many localities in the United States the post-office facilities have been swamped by the excess of souvenir postals, while on the boardwalk at Atlantic City riots have been narrowly averted because the authorities had neglected to supply enough one cent stamps to meet the demand of the victims of carditis postale.

Other insidious forms of the collecting mania, however, are co-incident with that which is propagated by pasteboard. Thousands of well meaning persons are gathering cigar bands and pasting them in ornate designs on nearly everything but doormats. Women of culture and refinement are sewing the painfully yellow ribbons which come around bundles of cigars into sofa pillows and the expostulations of husbands and fathers are of no avail. The latest mania is for ink-kissed kisses. Small albums are now provided on the pages of which may be imprinted the impress of the carmine soaked lips of the person who subscribes his regards in the book. Some if these kisses are bunchy; others well defined and many small and pecky.

Among the other forms of mania are the eccentric fevers which result in their sufferers gathering newspaper headings, pewter mugs, old locks, stones of queer shapes, arctic fleas, old tables, souvenir spoons, hotel loot, beer labels, theater ticket coupons, meteorites, tumble bugs, birds' eggs, and scarabi.

In fact, if one goes about looking for tendencies of this kind he may nearly anywhere scratch a Tartar. This may seem an extravagant statement, but I have on more than one occasion put it to the test. There was Newborough, for instance, who was regarded by a large circle of friends as the most sensible and practical man in the city of New York. His time was largely devoted to tabulating statistics, writing matter about aqueducts and water supply, the clashes of labor and capital, and other themes which involved the exercise of high endowments and a well developed common sense. He was the last person who would be suspected of having a collection fad. You remember Sir A. conan Doyle's story, in which the message "All is discovered, fly at once," was sent to the bishop. His grace disappeared as soon as it was received, although for many decades he had been celebrated for piety and virtue. That was much the same plan which I pursued towards Newborough, although it was the intention to demonstrate that there was at least one man in the world who was not fad insane.

"Well," I asked of him suddenly as he was bending over his desk, "what do you mean by spending so much money on that sort of thing? Do you think that you can afford it? What did you pay for the last one?"

He looked up guiltily. "Only $150," was his reply, "and it was a genuine Guarnarius. I put it alongside the Strad. I don't spend much money on them. I have got a Tinoni and Amati, about twenty I guess."

It was thus that I discovered Newborough, the Fiddle Bug, known far and wide as one of the most slavish adherents of the fancy for amassing old violins. H not only bought them, but he made them out of maplewood tables which he snapped up in the course of long pedestrian tours through Connecticut. He was in correspondence with other victims of the insecta viola, in all parts of the world, and his enemies finally succeeded in persuading him to write a book.

All these studies of abnormality manifested in postal carditis, cigar band heart, fiddle bug proclivities, and similar afflictions show that there is in human nature a queer magpie strain which may never be overcome. It is the purpose of this article to ask that the reader deal gently with the erring and to remember that much as he may deplore the failings of others, that in the words of Kipling "We are all alikeunder the skin."

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The attention of the Citizen has recently been called to picture post-cards, by having them thrust upon him at almost every turn. The picture post-card today is something none can escape. It greets you in your morning mail, it meets you on the street corner, it follows you into the railroad train; at the hotel, the bank, the art gallery, it is waiting for you on the threshold. Therefore, why not consider it seriously? There was probably never an age so picture-mad as the present. The Citizen has a friend who declares that in a generation or two this will be the only means of communication that people are forgetting how to read because they are being over-fed by the magazines on pictures, and that they are likewise forgetting how to write because of the picture post-cards. But this friend is a pessimist, or likes to make people think he is.

All these dark forebodings the Citizen does not share, but he will not affirm that they are groundless. He was talking with an architect the other day, and happening to mention a certain uncommonly interesting article which had appeared recently in a technical magazine, was asked if it was illustrated. Replying in the negative, this architect exclaimed, with perfect candor, "Ah, that was it. I never have time to more than look at the pictures." And the Citizen has observed of late that very few long, interesting letters come back across the Atlantic from friends taking summer tours. "Only time for a postal, but this picture will tell you beautiful this place is," is the form of superscription to be found on the majority of picture post-card missives. Now if this were true there would be little reason for complaint but, alas, many of the picture post-cards tell their story very feebly at least those which set forth scenes in America.

The Citizen has a misgiving that many of the American postals are printed abroad, but, if so, it is hard to understand why they should be so inferior to those one can buy on the other side of the ocean. Perhaps the sellers here are greedier and, wishing to make more profit, secure inferior product; possibly those who make the photographs from which the reproductions are made have less instinct for art and think that anything at which they may snap their camera's eye will make a picture. Certainly there are comparatively few which merit regard as works of art. This does not apply to those one sees abroad. Traveling from place to place in England, and on the Continent, one finds that the choicest views have been hunted out and with delightful feeling reproduced on post-cards. And most of the post-cards offered for sale across the sea are in one tint black and white or sepia seldom does one see any in color and perchance when one does, as at Bruges, they are really gems examples of the highest order of color-printing. But here, in America, what fearful atrocities are offered! Shiny, slippery, meaningless colors, bearing false witness of the worst kind to the beauty they would declare. Glance at Niagara as thus pictured, or at the Yellowstone Valley would anyone be attracted to either? And yet it is the colored picture post-cards which the Citizen is told "sell best," the truer ones in monotint being little in demand. Seeking an explanation the Citizen is reminded of an account he read in a newspaper some years ago of an exhibition which was said to display "much taste some good and some bad."

But what a business it has become this making and selling of picture post-cards! An acquaintance who saved enough out of a modest salary to take a two-months trip abroad, a season or so ago, recently confessed to the Citizen that she had spent forty dollars on picture post-cards to keep and to send during that comparatively brief time probably a sixth of the cost of her whole holiday trip; and, if she, then probably many like her. As the Citizen remembers having purchased one hundred in Paris of a guileless young Armenian, who generously offered to "spleky American" with him, for the enormous amount of a franc, he wonders what his acquaintance's home-coming hand-luggage must have weighed. To return, however, to the point if there is one. If the world has gone picture-mad and would satisfy its appetite with post-cards, certainly some philanthropist ought to make it his business to see that the public taste is not vitiated that it has the right kind of food to feed upon. And if picture post-card making and selling is becoming a great business, then the better product logically the more reward. There are two extremes in picture-postals, the reproduction of works of art so superior that it seems a desecration to send them through the mails, and the representation of semi-comic things too vulgar to be circulated. From the standpoint of the Citizen here is an opportunity and a danger but then, of course, the Citizen isn't all-wise.

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Like a heaven-sent relief, the souvenir postal card has come to the man of few ideas and a torpid vocabulary. No invention in recent years has been so gratefully received. To the thousands of weary travelers ransacking their poorly stocked garrets for words with which to transmit the wonders they are seeing to the folks at home, the first souvenir card came like the first bit of green to the mariners in the ark. It represented one general gasp of relief"See it for yourself; I can't describe it"and there was no question of its success.

To write of souvenir cards is to write of the human race and enumerate its foot tracks. The sands of the sea are hardly a quorum beside them. They are sold in every hamlet in Europe and America, in Siberia, Alaska, Mombasa, Tierra del Fuego, Beluchistan, the tomb of Shakespeare, the Queen's Chamber in the Great Pyramid. From steamers they carry the bill of fare back to the home folks. From balloons they bear messages to newspapers. From jails they carry appeals for bail to faithful friends. The traveler marks his trail as if with confetti by hastily scribbled notes consisting of "Wish you were here, All well." "Stood in front of this statue to-day. All well," thus paying up old debts, keeping his family informed and, at the same time, impressing a little of the glory of traveling upon the stay-at-homes.

As time has gone on, the cards have increased in variety and beauty until buying souvenir cards abroad has become more fascinating than buying gloves in Paris. The ordinary one-night-stand European trip consists nowadays of two experiences, repeated indefinitelyseeing the cathedral and buying souvenir cards of the town. Card sellers poke their wares at you through the car windows. They swarm about you as you walk the streets. The conductor of the excursion hack announces solemnly, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Louvre. Fifteen minutes for which to buy souvenir cards." Sight-seeing has been made wonderfully easy because no longer do you have to tramp through innumerable shrines of history and art. You can buy the interiors and all their contents outside the door. Often by so doing you will come away much more awe-struck than if you had made the personal investigation. This is particularly so in Paris. The best and most delightful way of seeing Paris, so far as confirming past dreams is concerned, is to buy souvenir cards of it in Switzerland.

The souvenir card is of foreign birth but, like everything else, it has emigrated. The domestic card is now as great a feature as the foreign production. When mother decides that she will stay all night with her daughter in the next town, she sends word home to the family on a souvenir card of the Carnegie Library. When father's dry-goods store burns down, he photographs the catastrophe, prints a souvenir card from it and requests the insurance adjuster to drop into town immediately. When Tilly, the chauffeur of the family cook stove, packs up and leaves at night she breaks the news to the family next day on a souvenir card. Baby's arrival, his first tooth, his first trousers, his first bicycle, his first girl and his first baby, all go to the family circle by souvenir postal, for anyone with a camera can make his own cards these days. In fact, the home-grown card has become so useful that no family can keep house without it. Thanks to it, we know more than we once did about our relatives and friends, as well as about Burn's house and the catacombs of Rome.

If the souvenir card had stopped at being a purveyor of canned descriptive it would be almost an unmixed blessing. but enterprise knows no dead line, and enterprise, in the guise of a souvenir card, had become a menace to the letter-writing ability of an entire nation. It was bad enough when mankind, instead of filling a letter with good English, wrote a few hasty words on a postal card. But of late the accommodating card has been supplying those few words. We have now not only the picture card, but the conversational card. The man who is not well supplied with wit can purchase it at the rate of two epigrams for five cents. He can buy personal remarks of an embarrassing or irritating nature and mail them to his friends. Or, if he has received such a remark from another friend, he can generally find, by a little searching, a withering retort which comes plain for one cent or in three colors for five centsnot an excessive tariff for repartee. He can even buy postals arranged in the Australian ballot system by which he can write a whole letter to a friend simply by putting crosses in the proper squares in the following sentences:

[ ] "This is a slow town." [ ] "This is a gay town." [ ] "The cemetery is the liveliest joint in this burg." [ ] "I am well." [ ] "I am a dead one." [ ] "I am all well but my appetite." [ ] "Business is good." [ ] "Business is rotten." [ ] "They buy suspenders on installments in this town." and so forthsixty quotations on a card. Could human ingenuity go farther in saving wear and tear on the brain?

Herein, however, lies its danger. The American nation has never been overly gifted in letter writing. Of later years it has become entirely too busy to write letters. There are already men who do not write a personal letter once in a year and who, if deprived of their stenographers and supplied with writing materials, would be overwhelmed with despair and ink at the end of an hour. There are already women who confine their correspondence to appropriate cards on Christmas and St. Valentine's. The present generation of children rush to the souvenir card stores as soon as they have learned their childish letters and find that, with a little practice, they can be as witty as their elders in picking out appropriate sentiments and replies.

In another generation the hand-made letter will be as extinct as hand-made music. It will be used only at one agethe time when life to the young man or the young woman consists merely of a series of long and uninteresting hiatuses between the daily mail deliveries.

But now arises a new danger which threatens even this last citadel of letter writing. The souvenir postal card courtship, if not an accomplished fact, is only a step in the future. Already a conversation a year long can be maintained at a cost of one cent per day in postage and from three to five cents in cards. No manufacturer has yet discerned any market for cards containing proposals in all forms and manners nor of answers in all degrees of enthusiasm. But the wise manufacturer will prepare, for, having furnished the material to lead a couple up to the crisis by word of card, he must not desert them in their hour of need.

It takes very little strain on the imagination to follow the course of a souvenir card courtship clear to the floral bell in the parlor of the bride's home. Let John represent the youth of the coming generation, well educated in postal card repartee, but who has never written and mailed five consecutive words. Let Mary represent a handsome young woman who has toured Europe and has, by means of picking out postal cards carrying the proper sentiments, kept her family and friends well informed concerning her health, enthusiasms and impressions. Let John and Mary, living in neighboring towns, be introduced at the home of a friend. Let each return home deeply impressed and eager to continue the acquaintance.

There are 100 cruel miles between the two and neither has ever written a letter. However, not knowing what they are missing, they do not repine. John sends Mary souvenir cards of the train on which he returned, the main street of the town, the river bank, the post office, the office in which he works and an ornamental affair which reads: "This would be a good town if it had you," and Mary, after a little hunting, discovers the following modest answer:

"Aren't you stringing yourself along?"

Upon which John would not rest until he had discovered the following:

"Sure, I'm all wrapped up in you."

To which he would get this coy little jolt:

"Why don't you take something for what ails you?"

This, of course, would take a little hunting to answer, but John would presently discover a set of topical song hits on postal cards and presently Mary would get the following:

"There ain't nothin' ails me but what you can cure."

Which, of course, would be perfectly easy with a well-stocked store to draw from. This is about what John would get:

"What you need is a little pinch of salt."

Thus the correspondence would flutter merrily along, and, while occasionally one of the two would be cornered by an unanswerable retort and would be forced into the humiliation of answering with such a trite thing as:

"Here's to brown eyes, bless 'em," or "Doesn't this old town look good to you any more?" As a rule the answers would be pat and prompt, even if it did take desperate searches to land some of them. In time the cards would become gentler and a bit more seriousJohn boldly sending the most eloquent declarations he could find and Mary confronted with the very delicate job of answering them pleasantly without putting herself on record in red, white and blue ink. For instance, when Mary got a card like this:

"You're all the world to me, kid," it would require a lot of diplomacy to side-step this sort of thing and yet encourage more. But a good card store would enable her to reply:

"I wonder if you mean all you say."

And John wouldn't have much trouble in finding the following:

"If I only could say all I mean."

About this time, the correspondence would go under cover. Cards above a certain temperature are less embarrassing when mailed in envelopes, anyway. It is easy to see the result. Another three months would find John driving card sellers into profanity by his persistent hunting for a particular card. Imagine a pale and anxious lover dependent entirely upon the ingenuity of some sordid card artist who probably has never been in love himself, spending days in a frantic attempt to jam his surging soul into a ten-word sentiment written by someone else. Still, it could be accomplished, and presently Mary would receive the following:

"If I had a little home, would you share it?" or "Wouldn't you help me spend my salary through life?" or "I love you, dearie, and what's the answer?"

There is a suspicion that a woman can foretell a proposal long enough in advance to be pretty well prepared, and very probably Mary has stored away some such card as this:

"It's been all you since first we met," or some other form of the same old answer.

And so the postal card romance would be completed. Note its economy both in stamps and brain cells. Even these virtues do not mark the limit of development in the souvenir card. What will tomorrow bring in postal cards to compete against the letter which hasn't improved in the last fifty centuries except that where once it was baked on an Assyrian paving brick it is now written on heavy blue paper, nine tall words to a page and each page continuing to parts unknown?

This is the menace of the postal card. Will a syndicate, backed by some greedy trust, dictate the sentiments of the human race a decade hence, and will the course of true love the world over be dictated by half a dozen ready writers of paragraphic eloquence penned up in the loft of some New York office building?

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