A fair old get-together! “!’m so glad you’re keeping this going”. This one of many similar comments at the Nottingham Postcard Fair (plus cigarette cards, ephemera, militaria!) on Saturday. It was apparent that just about everyone there was having a good time, immersed in the fascination and thrill, of collecting. Missing dealers Rod Jewell and Mark Routh were asked after by numerous people (they’re both ok!). But having said that, we could have done with another hundred people! There’s no escaping the fact that putting on fairs is becoming a challenge for organisers, squeezed at one end by increasing costs …read more

National Postcard Week? It was Hal Ottaway from Wichita Postcard Club who reminded me of it. The concept is still alive in the USA, promoted by the club from Kansas. This year it’s May 1st to 7th, and it struck me that maybe it would be a good idea to resurrect the concept in the UK – it lapsed in the early 1990s. I’ve pitched the idea to the Postcard Traders Association, so we’ll see what happens there. NPW UK was strong in the 1984-88 period, but maybe the promoters (including Alan Bower, whose original idea it was) became weary …read more

Have you seen the great new film The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy and Andrea Riseborough, with Olivia Colman narrating? If you reply in the negative, I’m not surprised as it lasted just a week at our local Showcase cinemas. The Odeon chain was showing it as well, so you might still be in luck, or check your local independent – Broadway Cinema in Nottingham has it on till 23rd January. Otherwise you can catch it on Amazon Prime. We went to a late afternoon showing, and the cinema was empty apart from us. The …read more

These two postcards really are a bit of magic, the Edwardian era’s photoshop. The Rotary Photographic Co., market leaders in the production of postcards of Royalty and celebrities, showed a touch of creativity in designing many of their cards, in particular taking individual portraits and montaging them in a printing blender to create an impressive panorama. On the two featured today, each person appears on a postcard of their own in the company’s range, but they have been woven together to create an image of a large gathering – which never happened! Edward VII sits centre stage on both postcards. …read more

It’s difficult to imagine what it was like when picture postcards exploded in production round about 1903. Although the first pictorial cards began to be published commercially in 1894, it took another eight or nine years before their presence on the High Street began to make itself felt. For sure, postcard were available for most towns, cities and seaside resorts by the turn of the 20th century, but the most enthusiastic buyers were visitors from overseas, and with the exception of Valentine of Dundee, most postcards came from local firms without a strong nationwide reach. ETW Dennis of Scarborough were …read more

For a couple of decades at the start of the 20th century, picture postcards reigned supreme in the seasonal greetings market. Costing just one halfpenny to post compared with double that for a folded greetings card, postcards soon eclipsed that market. And what a wealth of subjects appeared on Edwardian Christmas postcards! Images of holly berries, robins, snow scenes and seasonal characters were produced by the million. Favourite with collectors now are cards featuring Santa Claus, especially those designed on the hold to light principle, where cut-outs of the top layer of cardboard produced a magic brightness in parts of …read more

It is often said that every conceivable subject has appeared on picture postcards, but sometimes it is quite astonishing just how many different cards on a particular theme can actually be found. I found that to be true when I went looking for postcards of guitars. What a range I discovered, from old real photographic cards of people playing the instrument in various locations (outdoor singing picnics seemed particularly popular in Germany), to street musicians, actresses identifying themselves with playing a guitar, romantic artist-drawn cards featuring people or dressed animals, and comic cards of children. Post-1945, cards can be found …read more

I’m prone to misquote Dr. Johnson in saying “He who is tired of postcards is tired of life” (actually he said London). Samuel Johnson (who has statues to him in Lichfield and London) found the capital endlessly fascinating, and liked nothing better than to wander round exploring it. I feel there’s much the same satisfaction in postcards, which themselves reflect the whole of life. Pictures, messages, publishers, artists, postmarks, senders and recipients all provide a stimulus for exploring the background to each postcard, whether that’s a 1960s view of Butlins, a World War One soldiers’ postcard, or an Edwardian view …read more

I’m talking statues today. On postcards, obviously. Those edifices that we walk past all the time (well, in normal times, anyway) without giving much of a thought to who they  represent. Most are pretty old, anyway. The Victorians loved erecting thes tributes to local heroes, but sometimes they become an embarrassment to generations that follow. Edward Colston, who made his fortune from the slave trade, was accorded a statue because he was a local benefactor, funding all kinds of public buildings and works from the money he made. Now he’s been unceremoniously dumped after years of campaigning for his statue …read more

Do you send Easter cards? I never have until this year when I sent two Edwardian postcards with current first class stamps on to family. And that compares with maybe a couple of hundred Christmas cards. Plenty of Easter greetings folded cards are on sale in the shops, as the religious festival has been added to all the others commemorated by greetings cards manufacturers. Do people who buy them do so because it’s a religious festival or just another chance to contact a friend? Or is it basically just a retail opportunity? At the start of the 20th century, though, …read more