Vintage Postcards: Postcard Blog » holidays

A Fanciful Halloween Postcard

VintagePostcards — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:02:04 +0000

Halloween is our favorite holiday — everyone gets to be a child again. Halloween postcards are among the most popular of all collectible postcards, in part because of their fanciful nature. This c. 1907-1915 example has splendid graphics, depicting a young boy holding a jack o’lantern, as its smoke produces a witch on a broom with long, flowing brown hair. An owl sits to the right. Profusely gilded and embossed and with deep, rich colors, this is a fine example of a Halloween fantasy postcard. Happy Halloween!

Read more about Halloween postcards, or see more Halloween postcards at our website. We also offer the world’s largest selection of postcard books.

Fanciful Easter Rabbits Inspect Easter Eggs

VintagePostcards — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:12:10 +0000

Happy Easter from two handsome Victorian-era rabbits! This vivid antique postcard shows them checking out some colored Easter eggs for the Easter holiday. Did you color Easter eggs with your mother? We did. Lavishly gilded and embossed, this vintage post card is also bedecked with violets, a symbol of remembrance in Victorian times. The post card is of high quality, and was probably published in Germany. It was sent by Aunt Kate to Glenn Fravel of Cresco, Iowa in 1913. We hope Glenn enjoyed this little treasure as much as we do!

Read about a fanciful Valentine’s Day postcard, and see the colorful holiday postcards at our website.

An Antique Leap Year Postcard for Fun

VintagePostcards — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:46:09 +0000

Leap Year only occurs once every four years, so we thought we’d show you an amusing old postcard from this unusual holiday, when role reversal was the norm for the day, Victorian behavioral constraints were set aside, and women were allowed to propose to the man of their choice. This particular postcard was printed for Leap Year 1908, 100 years ago today.

Entitled “The Piano Proposal, or The Message of the Music” and captioned: “Try This on Your Piano/It Will Catch Him in 1908” the postcard shows a nervous woman peaking out from behind a curtain, as her suspicious beau, Oscar, whose photo is atop the piano, eyes the sheet music titles scattered about. The beau is thinking: “Maybe It’s a Coincidence, But It Certainly Looks Suspicious.”

Oscar probably has every right to suspect a set-up, as the songs carry such titles as: “I’m Wearing My Heart Away for You!”; “Dreaming”; “Every Little Bit Helps”; “I’m So Lonesome”; “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave!”; “Everybody’s in Slumberland But You and I!”; and “Don’t You Think It’s Time to Marry?”

The postcard bears a scarce 1909 Laytonsville, KY DPO (dead post office) cancel, and was part of a collection we purchased containing postcards addressed to Miss Georgia Fruit, who lived in the Hopkinsville, Kentucky area. The Laytonsville post office was only open from 1890 to 1913, and was purchased by a collector for the DPO cancel. The message on the reverse reads: “Can you play these pieces? If not, learn by the time I come, for I am coming soon. Your friend.” A mysterious and romantic Christian County or holiday collectible.

Learn more about holiday postcards, or see a selection of holiday postcards at our website.

Remembering a Lost Holiday

VintagePostcards — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:46:48 +0000

Are you old enough to remember how we used to celebrate President George Washington’s birthday on February 22? Until 1971, both February 12 and February 22 were federal holidays to honor the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington respectively. In 1971, President Richard Nixon merged the two holidays into Presidents’ Day, to honor all past presidents. It’s observed every third Monday of February.

This brightly colored 1909 postcard celebrates Washington’s birthday. Profusely gilded and embossed, it was signed by postcard artist Ellen Nash. It depicts elements from the old “I cannot tell a lie” legend about Washington’s childhood, with the message reading: “Washington, his truthfulness.” See more George Washington and holiday postcards at our website.

Read about another lost holiday and see Decoration Day postcards.

Merry Christmas from VintagePostcards.org

VintagePostcards — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 22:22:22 +0000

Merry Christmas to all our long-suffering readers! We also wanted to wish you well for the New Year, too! ~~Our plans remain in place to move the blog to VintagePostcards.org in the next several weeks.~~ Hosting a blog at your own domain with WordPress offers many more options. (Long story short, if you’re going to have a blog, we recommend WordPress. Live and learn.)

If you need someone to install WordPress for you, we offer that service. In the meantime, enjoy our selection of Christmas postcards.

Read another blog post about other colorful holiday postcards.

Happy Fourth of July!

VintagePostcards — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:40:57 +0000

The Fourth of July, or Independence Day, is always a favorite with postcard collectors, due to the bright, bold graphics used and the attendant theme of patriotism. These post cards are often awash in firecrackers and flags. Here’s one of our favorites: a 1908 antique postcard showing a little girl in a bright red dress, holding a tiny doll and waving a small flag as sailor boys pass by. Strangely, both of the flags shown are backwards. It’s small details such as these which often add to the charm of a vintage postcard.

Although not as bright and colorful, real photo postcards (RPPCs) depicting Uncle Sam are scarce and desirable. The more fanciful and detailed, the better. Here’s a classic Uncle Sam antique postcard, also from about 1908, which is all the more desirable as it shows a child dressed as Uncle Sam. His broad smile shows the pride he feels about being chosen to wear this costume.

Enjoy the selection of Fourth of July and patriotic postcards at our website. And Happy Fourth of July!

Read another blog post about July Fourth holiday postcards.

Decoration Day and Memorial Day Postcards

VintagePostcards — Tue, 22 May 2007 17:17:48 +0000

With the Memorial Day holiday coming up this weekend, we thought we’d explore how this holiday has evolved in vintage postcards. The changes may surprise you.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day, as the embossed patriotic postcard above shows, and was intended to remember Union troops who died in the Civil War. It fittingly began as a black history celebration, with the first impromptu Decoration Day observed in 1865 by liberated slaves in Charleston, South Carolina, at a site which had been both a Confederate prison camp and a mass grave for Union soldiers who died in captivity. Thousands of emancipated blacks and Union soldiers marched in a parade which was followed by rousing patriotic songs and a picnic. However, Waterloo, New York gets the credit as the official birthplace of Memorial Day, because the village formally observed the holiday on 5 May 1866.

Major General John A. Logan helped popularize what was then known as “Decoration Day.” On 5 May 5 1868, while commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic a veterans’ organization, he issued a proclamation calling for nationwide observance of Decoration Day; the first national observance occurred that year on 30 May, a date chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any battle. Publishers such as Raphael Tuck created Decoration Day postcards and artists such as Ellen Clapsaddle, working for the International Art Publishing Co., created dramatic patriotic compositions. Tuck also published a series of much scarcer Confederate Memorial Day postcards; the South, unwilling for years to participate in a holiday honoring Union dead, didn’t adopt Memorial Day celebrations for the most part until after World War I, as Memorial Day began to take on a larger meaning commemorating all war dead. The above c. 1907-1915 postcard, which has a Winsch back, is from Decoration Day Series No. 3.

The alternative Memorial Day name, first used in 1882, didn’t become more common until after World War II. It wasn’t until 1967 that it was declared the holiday’s official name by Federal law. This colorful c. 1907-1915 Memorial Day postcard incorporates numerous patriotic elements including the U.S. Capitol, flag motifs, a Union soldier beating a drum which bears part of the Pledge of Allegiance, and laurel wreaths which, since ancient Greek times, have signified victory. Have a Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Browse the Decoration Day postcards at our website.

Read about another forgotten holiday and see Washington’s Birthday postcards.

Visit the Halloween Queen

VintagePostcards — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:17:58 +0000

During a recent road trip, we happened upon the Castle Halloween Museum and Shop in Benwood, WV, near Wheeling. Now, if you’ve ever been to Wheeling, it’s unfortunately exactly as you remember it. It’s the only place we know of where you can still buy a house for $5,000. The population actually declined from 1990 to 2000. ‘Nuff said?

However, a mere five miles away is Castle Halloween, home of the Halloween Queen, Pamela Apkarian-Russell and her husband, Chris Russell. Things began to look up! It was a misty, overcast day, with periods of gentle, steady rain which muffled the sound of coal trucks lurching by. If you’ve ever been trapped behind one in traffic, you’ll know why coal trucks are not our favorite vehicle in the world. They’re bigger, and they know it. They drive sloooowly. They spit forth chunks of coal. Nice, huh? Traffic etiquette is not their forte.

The Halloween Queen, a noted authority on Halloween memorabilia, resides in the old Boggs Run Elementary School at 577 Boggs Run Rd. in Benwood, WV 26031. Call (304) 233-1031 before you go, to make sure someone is home that day. One of the Halloween Queen’s endearing qualities is that she has the largest collection of Halloween postcards in the world. She has funeral ornaments, folk art face jugs — a woman after my own heart! — and antiques and collectibles. A notable copper sculpture on a coal shute door must have frightened many a child over the years.

We spent hours browsing in the postcard shop and came away with some great finds, including the c. 1915 patriotic Canadian silk postcard seen below. You can learn more about silk postcards on our reference page, in the postcard history section.

And then alas, it was time to wend our way east, bearing in mind the saying underneath the neon Halloween pumpkin, “Never confuse hospitality with endurance.” Enjoy browsing the Halloween postcards at our website.

Read about the search for an old postcard for a dying man.

Happy Fourth of July, v2.0

VintagePostcards — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:19:43 +0000

And here’s the fairer sex and our other iconographic image of Independence Day, Lady Liberty, celebrating the Fourth of July. This vintage postcard was published c. 1907-1915. Early Fourth of July postcards often contain some of the most memorable images of any old postcard genre.

See more Fourth of July postcards, or read another blog post about holiday postcards.