True confessions: I bought 18 vintage postcards at a huge postcard convention the other day, and if they hadn't closed up (and my friends hadn't borrowed the rest of my cash), I would have bought more. They were fabulous! Probably 50 vendors with millions of postcards each, all arranged in boxes with dividers with intriguing titles like Big Type, Midgets, Dancing, Multiple Babies (found that one after I'd already spent too much), and Enormous Objects.
I'm probably going sell some of the cards--I bought too many to keep them all. Worst of all, I found out from one of the vendors there's a postcard swap a mile from my house the first Monday of every month. I could quickly become addicted!
Almost as interesting as the cards themselves are the messages on the backs. Not all the cards had been mailed, but a number have messages and 1 cent stamps. The writing is all cursive, some beautiful, some hard to read. Many of the messages are mundane, things that would now be taken care of in a phone call or an e-mail. Here's a sample:
From a 1910 card of the flying machine:
"Dear frinds, We will be over Sunday Jnry 3. meet us at the tram good by Mr. Bert Broylis. if we are not there this Sunday we will be next Sunday shore.
From a 1953 postcard of two babies, sent from Michigan.
Dear Bill. We are up at the cottage. Drove thru the Toronto area. I will fung (?) some pape (?) pictures. Just can not describe how bad
it was. So sorry for the people whoes homes are leveled to the ground. Writing this in car. Maby you can not read this.
From a 1911 card of a man swatting at mosquitoes, sent from Selma to California:
Dear Cousin: I will drop you a few lines tonight. Well, kid I was sure surprised to hear that aunt & uncle has come home so soon. I want to go to see them as soon as I can. Say Helen I have bought me a piano. What do you think about that? Say come up & we will play a Deut. ha ha.
