Postcard collecting
I've been sorting out my art and all the frames, and trying to put them together. One of the mini projects was sorting out my postcard collection.
I've always been into postcards. They are just fun. Some years ago I collected a bunch of Paris circa 1905 to 1910 (and one of Milan.) Put them in a frame. No mounting because my god. And you know what, it looks fine. From a distance.
So I had a bunch of postcards from my home town between 1905 and 1938. Featuring lots of trams! So cool. I framed nine (in one frame) but there's more I really want to put up.
The spares are in a very snazzy binder. Top tip I learned from not doing this for my Paris ones was to write interesting info like dates and locations on a separate index card and put it on the back of the frame or nearby, for reference.
They'll go in the hall. I've got a Victorian print of a view of the city from more or less this spot, which is a bit of a conversation starter and I think the postcards will be too.
Many of the postcards are used and obviously that's a fascinating story. There's the stamps, some people like stamps. There's the script - great examples for my [handwriting practice] (/handwriting-like-its-1895/). There's where they go. Several have 'Local' written rather than the name of the city so apparently that was a thing.
Some are literally just an address, sending a little picture. Some are brief. Hello, I've arrived. I am well. Many happy returns. Uncle hasn't written to me yet. Some are densely packed epistles that surely should have been a letter.
Every so often I just go marauding around ebay looking up places and buying postcards. Mostly I think they are between two and four pounds.
Letters as historical documents, love letters, epistolary stories, are favourites of mine. I've long wanted to write an epistolary love story in postcards.
Tracy Durnell has some great links on postcards.