I collect old postcards. I don’t have a preferable style, but I do tend to collect the years of 1900 through 1910. Many of the postcards are related to holidays, birthdays or seasons of the year. I’ve included two Thanksgiving postcards here along with an Autumn Scene.

So often my postcards will have a picture in a picture…in the case above a landscape within a seasonal depiction of a turkey.

Many postcard collectors prefer pristine cards that have no writing and have never been mailed. I am just the opposite; the more cramped, old-fashioned writing a card has, the more I love it.

I also find the wisdom of this postcard mailed a hundred years ago to be as true today as it was in the early 1900’s – Live for Today.

It can be quite a challenge to read the writing…scrawly, in this case written by a lefty, and using expressions not common today, but it is a challenge I love. A good way to attempt to decipher the cramped writing is to scan the card and magnify on your computer screen. Here is how this postcard reads:

Dear Effie I rec. (received) your card and was glad to hear from you and (a name I can’t read), I will wish you both a Happy New Year. Will (unknown word) and write soon. My head is troubling me. I suppose you have not the cold winter where you are as have both. Altog (?altogether?) we have had it very mild so far. I hope it may continue for I do not like the cold. With lots of love. Your old friend Ada.