Yana sends this beautiful and atypical view of Red Square in Moscow. There’s also supposed to be a letter coming, according to the postcard; Yana says that she posted both a letter and this postcard at the same time, and is curious as to which would arrive first.  I shall have to write to her once I receive her letter and give her the results. (Oops, guess I should have waited to post this!)

The postcard was mailed on 15 February and arrived yesterday, without stamps. From the postmark, it is clear that there were two stamps (or more) attached to the card; I can still see and feel a trace of the glue. I don’t think they could have been swiped so cleanly; they must have slipped off in transit. What are the Russians making their stamp glue out of? Potatoes?

Don’t forget to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday today; they’ll stick to you!

“Between 1935 and 1943 the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project printed over two million posters in 35,000 different designs to stir the public’s imagination for education, theater, health, safety, and travel. Due to their fragile nature only two thousand posters have survived. This contemporary design illustrates many of the WPA-era posters, including those of our National Parks.” And so, alas, it’s not a reproduction of an authentic WPA poster, but it did fool me. This brilliant re-creation is by Doug Leen and Brian Maebius.

This card comes from Marsha, who bought this card in Hawaii in January, and mailed it to me from Wisconsin in February.

Want to visit some other exotic places from times past? Check out today’s Postcard Friendship Friday.

It’s a good thing Anita was on vacation here at lovely Swartswood Lake, New Jersey; she clearly needed one. I have two copies of this postcard, both sent by Anita; both were sent to her cousin, Miss Rose La Rocca of Brooklyn, New York; both were sent at the same time on the same day. Rose must have been scratching her head when these two card fell through the slot in her door.

Postcard the first: “To Rose, Having a wonderful time. It’s real lovely out here. I miss you all. Give regards to all home. I’ll be seeing you soon. Your cousin, Anita.”

Postcard the second: “Hello Rose, Having a wonderful time. How are your brothers, aunt, uncle, Grandma and you. I’ll be seeing you soon. Love, your cousin, Anita.”

Sure, she sounds nice, but Anita is obviously off her nut. I have a few theories:

Theory 1: Anita is being overworked back in Brooklyn, and ran out to the Garden State for some desperately-needed R&R. She wrote a dozen postcards home and just didn’t realize that she wrote to Rose twice.

Theory 2: This “Lake House” is a sanitarium, and the phrase “I’ll be seeing you soon” carries with it an implied threat of the Michael Myers variety. Note that she enumerates the entire houseful of relatives against whom she has a grudge.

Theory 3: In reality, Anita sent only one postcard. The second card is from one of those alternate universes, like in the last Star Trek movie.

I will be happy to entertain any other theories; please leave a comment. And once you’ve helped me figure out what went on here, be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday today. Speaking of vacations — TGIF!

The Gu-ge (or Guge) Kingdom was founded in the 9th Century, one of many feudal kingdoms in western Tibet. Situated on trade routes from India and Kashmir, the kingdom thrived until the 1650s, when it was besieged by Muslim invaders from the Ladakh kingdom in India. Today, there are no descendants.

The buildings are literally carved out of the rock, and many murals, statues and other artifacts survive today, to the great delight of Tibetan Buddhists.

Today is Postcard Friendship Friday; I wish the U.S. treated its friends a little better. All the “Free Tibet” signs and T-shirts have been put away. The Dalai Lama just visited Washington, DC and the President decided not to meet with him; instead, we lit up the Empire State Building in red and yellow to celebrate 60 years of Communist rule in China. Perhaps the Dalai Lama can take comfort in the fact that, lately, we’ve been snubbing all of our other allies, too.

I have yet to see a postcard from Thailand that is anything less than stunning, but this one from Bangkok is in a class by itself. In fact, according to the card, this photo by Phisit Senanansakun is the winner of the second “Amazing Thailand Through the Lens” Contest. I don’t know what that is, but this photo certainly deserves honors.

Almost as remarkable as the photo is the 9-baht stamp used on this postcard, which depicts a royal barge (on the same river, no less) and is nearly as long as the postcard itself!

The smaller stamp depicts someone called “Theng”, the Jester, and inexplicably celebrates International Letter Writing Week 2008. Perhaps Theng used his off-hours to write to his penpals and complain about the daily grind. Maybe you should use your off-hours to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday today!

This reprint of an old postcard seems to be one of a series published in Nördlingen, Germany, entitled Alte Ansictskarten von Nördlingen (“Old Postcards of Nördlingen), and came to me from Beate, who grew up not too far from there. Pictured is one of eleven gates in the medieval Stadmauer (“city walls”), which are still very well preserved.

Beate also gave me a tip for dating older German postcards. The manufacturer’s address shows a four-digit postal code, and she tells me that Germany started using five-digit codes in 1993. Copycats! Maybe that’s why we expanded to nine digits. (As it happens, this postcard is labeled “Reprint 1984″.)

Unlike most postcards I received, this one arrived in an envelope — an actual air mail envelope! I didn’t think they were used much anymore.

Speaking of air mail, why don’t you fly on over to Postcard Friendship Friday and take a look around?  Today’s in-flight menu contains extra cheese.

This is a postcard sent to my Great-Grandpa Phil by his cousin, James, on February 25 of either 1908 or 1909; the postmark isn’t clear. (Also, somebody did a poor job of filching the stamp.) What’s odd is that it’s postmarked at Helen, Pennsylvania. James lived in Dawson, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles from Phil, but he mailed it from Helen, which was only about two miles away. James and Phil were both pre-teens at the time; James and family might have been visiting friends. I don’t recall any that any relatives lived in the very tiny hamlet of Helen.

James writes: “Dear Philip: I rec’d your card. Glad to hear from you. Mamma (Phil’s Aunt Kate) will answer your card you sent her soon. Good-by, James.”

Over at Girls Go Postal! today, I posted another of Phil’s cards, a postcard sent to him by my great-great-great-grandmother. Check it out, then take a look at the other folks celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday today!

Much of the US and the world has already gone back to school; those who haven’t will probably start by next Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. This young lad is no doubt posing for his back-to-school portrait. After all, he wouldn’t wear white after Labor Day, would he?

Based on the Artura photo paper stampbox on this postcard, I can definitively say that this postcard was produced between 1908 and 1924, so I split the difference and decided it was around 1915. This photo was taken at Ferguson’s Studio of Elkins, West Virginia.

Sadly, I am not able to find any historical references to the studio, save one: in 2003, an auction house (I won’t say which one) had a collection of 14 real photo postcards of the same (unknown) family, taken at Ferguson’s. They expected to fetch $300 for the lot. Ridiculous. I picked up this card as part of a lot of unrelated RPPCs, and the cost per card was far less than a dollar.

Be sure to check out the other little boys and girls celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday!

Some vintage humor for Postcard Friendship Friday: a deacon goes to town and discovers that they make postcards of pretty girls! (You can click on the extreme closeup at right and see for yourself what makes this deacon smile.)

Moreover, he seems pleased as punch at the discovery. And why shouldn’t he be? I know that I was pretty excited when I found out about it.

Looks like my Great-Grandpa Phil received this postcard, oh, a little over a hundred years ago; the postmark is a little obscured, but it looks like January 9, 1909.

This postcard (with matching stamp, no less) arrived recently from Emi in Shimane Prefecture, Japan.  Naturally, she is very proud of this local landmark, Matsue Castle, one of the few remaining medieval castles in Japan, and the only one to retain its original wood form.  (The rest of the castles have been preserved by casting their form in concrete, apparently.)

The castle was built between 1607 and 1611 and was a large complex, with multiple buildings. Except for this building, the castle keep, all of the buildings were destroyed in 1875 to make room for modernization.  Fortunately, there were preservationists around at the time who pressured to keep at least this one building standing.  From 1950 to 1955, the keep and the grounds underwent a complete renovation.

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday today!

This handy-dandy little piece of advertising ephemera dates from the 1930s — it’s actually an ink blotter, to mop up the excess ink from those pesky fountain pens.  The card that you see is mounted to a piece of purple paper that feels both rough and absorbent — lots of microscopic divots to really soak up the ink.

Wampole’s Creo-Terpin was produced from about the turn of the (20th) century until at least the 1940s; there are other World War II-era cards featuring guides to military decorations rather than common birds.  As far as the bird cards, this is just one of a series.  The cards allowed the local distributor to stamp their own information on them as well.

The “Creo” in Creo-Terpin seems to come from wood creosote, a bush that we know today has even more medicinal value than Wampole thought; it’s good for upset stomach, arthritis, anemia, and is even an anti-microbial.  (One entry in the Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery from 1908 tells physicians how to increase the creosote dosage.)  The “Terpin”, on the other hand, probably refers to terpin hydrate, which was usually sold in a solution with codeine to relieve bronchitis.  Terpin hydrate was easy to make, a synthetic subsititute for oil of turpentine, which is an ingrediant in Vicks Vapo-Rub, and makes you feel better.  Unfortunately, the synthetic has never been proven effective (it was probably the codeine that made you feel better), and the FDA banned it about 15 years ago in the US.

When I was growing up, my grandmother had one of these cards on her desk.  I sure wish I had that one, but it’s doubtless been lost to the ages.  But one good thing in which to lose yourself is all the other blogs celebrating this week’s Postcard Friendship Friday.

Here’s a little something to cool you off on this hot summer’s Postcard Friendship Friday: “Iceberg Lake, Altitude 11,500 Ft., Trail Ridge Road between Estes Park and Grand Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.”  It was in fact posted from Estes Park, CO on 3 August 1940; I guess somebody else was trying to cool off, too.  But we’ll never know who.

This is a Curt Teich “C. T. Art-Colortone” linen postcard, number 6A-H288, published in 1936.  Odd that there’s no message, but it does happen from time to time.  I received a postcard myself just last week (Update: correction — two weeks ago — Ed.) with no message; I was very put out about it.

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

I’m not trying to sell you anything for Postcard Friendship Friday, but I’m sure that this salesman had a very compelling pitch.  This photo was taken around 1915 by a Georgia photographer with the delightfully alliterative name over Cicero C. Simmons, whose career spanned 45 years, until he retired in 1925 at the age of 68.  The picture was probably taken in Talmo, Georgia, which is a small town located along the old Athens Highway.

I picked up this postcard about five or six years ago at the Athens Welcome Center.

For Postcard Friendship Friday — and the Friday before we celebrate our Independence Day — I would like to present these reminders that American men have not been the only guardians of our freedom.  The United States Postal Service apparently felt that the theme of women who protect and defend us is worth repeating as well.

The postcard pictured is a Postal Service-issued postcard that reproduces the “Women in Military Service” 32-cent stamp, issued on 18 October 1997, which was also the date of the dedication of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at the gates of Arlington National Cemetery.  A 3-cent stamp with a very similar theme (but which unfortunately omitted the Coast Guard) was issued on 11 September 1952.  The Department of Defense used the latter stamp to impress upon women the option of a military career.

Although the Postal Service has issued other stamps honoring individual women who served or contributed — pioneers in aviation, medicine, and other fields — I think that these stamps say it best.

My favorite woman in uniform (excluding those with whom I served) is without a doubt Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (1906-1992), a pioneer in computing.  Among other achievements, she brought forth the idea that we could program computers using words and syntax that resembled human languages, instead of having to use the ones and zeroes of the machine.  (She’s also credited with the saying that “It’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission” which, in my opinion, is how most progress is made.)

Be sure to stop by the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

This is the first time I’ve posted a view of my own town; I can’t imagine why that’s so except that I have so many cards from everywhere from which to choose!  Then I realize that a card showing a view that I see almost every day will seem as exotic to one of my postcard friends as their postcards seem to me.

This is a linen postcard, probably from the early to mid-1940s, of what was then the United States Post Office and Federal Building in beautiful downtown Gainesville, Georgia.  It’s still the Federal Building today and is also the Federal Courthouse, but the Postal Service moved out some time ago.  Today, there are four post offices in Gainesville; the main post office was built in the 1970s, and there are two more (and newer) branch offices along with a very new and very large carrier annex.

You’ll note that there’s a sign showing that street in front of the building was US Highway 23; today, it’s a narrow, poorly maintained one-way local street that leads to the downtown square, but back then it was one of the main highways to Atlanta.  Oddly enough, just the other day as I was standing near this spot, a very elderly gentleman asked me for directions to 23 and I had to think for a minute — US 23 in this part of Georgia is usually referred to by its other name of Interstate 985.  It turns out that he didn’t want directions to 23 at all, but to US 129, which is one of the main roads through town — but apparently he first came to know it as US 23, and that’s how he remembered it.  (If you don’t live in the US, you should understand that our numbered highway systems are generally superb, but that the numbers shift from time to time depending on when newer, better roads are built, what roads the federal government has the facilities to maintain, and which politicians can funnel those federal maintenance dollars to their own districts.)

Here’s a modern view I took recently from the same vantage point.  Kind of makes you wish for the good old days, doesn’t it?  Maybe you can find some at the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

For Postcard Friendship Friday, here’s a postcard mailed to a Friend.  Postmarked Santa Monica, California, 13 December 1938, this real photo postcard was dispatched to Mr. Friend P. Williams of Albany, New York.

Let’s talk about our friend Friend; I was able to learn a great deal about him from a variety of sources.  Originally from Olean, New York, Friend graduated from Cornell University in 1899 with a degree in civil engineering.  He spent most (if not all) of his career working as an engineer for the State of New York.

In 1906, he became engaged to a Miss Alma Horton, the daughter of Mr. F. M. Horton of 97 Gates Avenue in Brooklyn.  (I can’t help but wonder how they met; I can’t find any evidence that he spent any significant amount of time anywhere near NYC.)

He worked on the “Barge Canal” Project, which was a series of major improvements to New York’s canal system, which began around 1903 and lasted for decades.  By 1914, he was the division engineer for the project’s Western Division and, from 1919-1921, he served as a Special Deputy State Engineer, still with the project.

Ultimately, his career progressed until, by 1935, he was the Engineer-Secretary of New York’s Division of Water Power and Control.  When he received this card in 1938, I imagine he would have been about 62 years old and close to retirement.  His work certainly explains his residence in Albany, the state capital.

So friend Friend is no mystery.  The message, however, has resisted analysis:

Our writer uses a postcard featuring one of Oregon’s natural wonders to extol the virtues of California. “Californians are very proud of their state (justly so) and have shown us every square inch, or so it seems. We have been from San Diego to Portland, Oregon, and Dororty has done her duty, lecturing and signing books. We love California, but cold old Albany will look pretty good to us. We shall have a lot to tell you!  Just today we visited the Kellogg Arabian Horse Farm, and you know how much I enjoyed that. There were some beautiful horses there — pure white stallions. Our love to you and the girls. T. H.(?) Santiago.”

You would think that a woman with a name like Dororty and who is obviously an author and lecturer would be easy to find; I found a few, but none of them seemed to fit in with this message. Nor was I able to find Mr. Santiago.

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

For Postcard Friendship Friday, a postcard from some new friends. This beautiful postcard arrived today from Elina, the photographer at Yaroslavl for Me.  She and Evgeny, two university students, felt that most of the information online about Russian life and culture was from an urban point of view, and decided to blog about life in the provinces.  Given that Yaroslavl is less than 200 miles from Moscow, I’m not sure how provincial it is; nevertheless, their observations, as well as the photos and the songs from local bands, are always interesting.

Elina tells me that this photo (which I presume that she took herself) is the view of Yaroslavl as seen from the bridge over the Kotorosl River.

The stamps, with a nice, clear postmark from Yaroslavl, feature the Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar’s Village), a collection of palaces outside Saint Petersburg.

Stop by yarfor.me and say hi; maybe Elina will send you a postcard and you’ll make a new friend, too. Once you’ve done that, don’t forget to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

Here’s a little chuckle for your Friday.  This is an arcade card, which was a prize that one might win at a carnival or down the shore after beating some mechanical test of strength or skill.  The card is made from heavy stock, and the back of the card is blank.

Kudos to the caddie for his honesty — but she’ll never get her stance right if she insists on teeing off in heels.

Don’t forget to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

Kelly sent me this beautiful postcard of a photo by Norman Parkinson (1913-1990), a fashion and portrait photographer.  He opened his portrait studio in 1934 in London and was fortunate enough (and talented enough) to have clients such as Noel Coward and Vivien Leigh; his work was noticed.  He produced editorial photos for Harper’s Bazaar in the 1940′s, and did much fashion photography for the pages of Vogue throughout the 1950′s, then switched back to portraiture almost exclusively, capturing images of the rich and famous.

Even this fashion photo is more like a portrait. When I look at this photo, I see not the dress, but the model’s expression; I see the person.  This is not something you see in a catalog.  This is art.  Being an amateur portrait photographer myself, I’d give what’s left of my eyeteeth to be this good.

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

Shall we play a game, my friends?  Ju-Chin tells me that this is/was a traditional game in Taiwan; I have seen other representations of this game, with various motifs. This particular motif features characters from a cartoon known in the US as Battle of the Planets, or sometimes G-force and has been on the air in various incarnations and overdubs here since 1978, with a movie planned for 2010.  Its first incarnation was produced in Japan in 1972 as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman; it became popular in Taiwan in 1977 as Scientific Flying Fantasy Warriors (Ke Xuei Xiao Fei Xia).

The original game board is obviously much larger than postcard-size; Ju-Chin writes that each of the grids has a ”different prizes such as candy (or) chewing gum”.

Isn’t the back of the card just as cool as the front? Not only is the Gatchaman artwork reproduced, but there’s also a very unique stampbox as well (which Ju-Chin was kind enough to leave uncovered for me).

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.