Since there’s no worded suggestion, one must assume that it’s the illustration that is meant to impart some guidance. What I’m getting out of it is that you should take your lover to a quiet spot in the moonlight, stick out your tongue, and see what happens.

This card didn’t go through the postal system and appears to have been hand-delivered to Great-Grandpa Phil, presumably by some young lass who was making her intentions clear. Looks like Phil had a happy Valentine’s Day; I hope you do the same.

Thea in Queensland sends in this First Day of Issue maxicard, cancelled at St. Marys, New South Wales, Australia in 2008. (You can see another card from this series today at Girls Go Postal.) While the card doesn’t specifically say so, I expect that this is the angel who appeared before the shepherds as described in the book of Luke:

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

A very happy Christmas to you.

This “rosebud” comes from Rosa in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. She doesn’t get enough snow to need a sled, so she sent it my way. No snow here either! Here in North Georgia, our portion of the storm that gave most of the Eastern US a blizzard just gave us some cold, driving rain. No White Christmas for me this year.

Kudos to the postal services of the United States and the Republic of Singapore for delivering this Christmas card intact; it’s only four inches square.  Of course, Ammy, who sent this in, also wished the postman a merry Christmas on the back of the envelope, so it may have gotten special handling.

Ammy writes that, “in Singapore, almost everyone — regardless of race and religion, celebrates Christmas, even the Malays, who are traditionally Muslim by birth (they are born into Islam). In fact, every year, our government decorates a stretch of road in our prime shopping district, Orchard Road, with Christmas lights…. There’s also a contest among the Orchard Road shopping malls, for Best Decorated Mall.”

Ham radio operator Phil Shea may have just gotten lucky to get such a cool callsign, but more than likely it’s a vanity callsign he specifically requested. And why not? He did live in Massachusetts, after all, less than an hour from Salem. Also, take note of the fact that Phil was l33t before the rest of us.

This card acknowledges transmissions from Phil picked up by our friend Bill Seaback on February 13, 1960. It looks like Phil saved some money on his QSL cards by having only one side printed. Regardless, it makes for a great Halloween post.

This will be the last of Bill’s QSL cards to be posted. I’ve been in touch will Bill’s daughter, Jennifer, who tells me that Bill was 15 years old in 1960; as I suspected, he passed away a few years ago. I’ve sent off the 30-odd remaining cards to Jennifer. I’m sure that these cards will mean as much to her as my great-grandfather’s postcards mean to me.

Marco was kind enough to send me two beautiful cards from Naples, Italy, so I thought I’d use them to inaugurate a new feature called Two for Tuesday.  Really it’s just a way to remove the guilt from skipping a day here and there, like I did last Saturday.  First off, a panorama of the city:

This card attempts the same description in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese; the English description reads “Foreshortening panoramic street Partenope and Saint Lucy”.  Looks like somebody’s Babel Fish is playing tricks on them; I believe that the correct English translation is “panoramic view of Via Partenope and Santa Lucia”.

The Russian translation is even worse; it reads “Foreshortening panoramic улица Partenope и Святой Lucy”.  German is probably the most accurate; however, I can’t speak to the Chinese version.  Nevertheless, the view is stunning; it’s a great oversized postcard.  I don’t think we could get away with these colors in the US; our architecture isn’t suited for it.  But here it’s gorgeous.

The second card shows the Via San Gregorio Armeno (“Saint Gregory of Armenia Street”), also in Naples, where — well, I’ll let Marco explain: “This postcard shows the famous street of the Nativity scene makers. On this street, many handcraftsmen create true masterpieces of miniature, to decorate the Neapolitan Crib (presepe in Italian). Most shops are open all year, but a good period to visit the street is in September – November, when all the handcraftsmen start to prepare their shops for the busy Christmas time. During Christmas time, more than half a million tourists come to see the shops with the original miniature figurines, and the shops are especially busy.”  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In case you don’t already think Marco is awesome, he also found three age-appropriate cards for each of the grandsons, and tied up each group with a personalized gold ribbon.  He also sent the envelope with a number of interesting Italian stamps, which came all the way from Italy without being cancelled.

It turns out that Marco is a great fan of all things American, especially New York City.  I sent Marco a similar number of cards, trying to find as many as I could that were as uniquely American as possible, including an NYC postcard that I hope he will find very dear.

Those old Easter postcards with anthropomorphic chicks and rabbits give me nightmares.  Instead, I bring you this lovely Spring scene, courtesy of Great-Grandpa Phil.  Happy Easter!

“Martin Luther King is an inspiration to the citizens of America. A national holiday is celebrated in his honor in January every year. Upper left — Crypt, lower left — Morehouse College, center — Statue, upper right — Memorial, lower right — Chapel.”

It’s interesting that this card, published by APS, extols us to “let freedom ring into the Nineties” — when you consider that I bought this card in Publix just last October. My friend James had once theorized that some of my older cards, not postally used until a decade or more after they were published, might have sat on a rack in a drug store for years. I guess he’s right.

Happy 2009! Except for the detail inside the rectangular illustration, everything on this card has been embossed. According to my (incomplete) notes, I picked this card up in a shop somewhere for a buck. The card was published circa 1910, but let’s imagine that it was published in time for New Year’s Day 1909 so that we can say it’s seen exactly one hundred New Year’s Days.

This embossed card of German manufacture was sent to Great-Grandpa Phil from one “Lila”; it was postmarked at Vanderbilt, Pennsylvania on December 24, 1910 at 5 PM. As fast as the postmen used to be back then, I’m pretty sure that Phil didn’t receive this until the morning of December 26. In case you’re wondering, Lila is not my great-grandmother.

To my readers and fellow collectors: have a very merry Christmas!

This card was given to Great-Grandpa Phil by Ida M. Schobert on “Dec. 17 – 09″, which either means 99 years ago or one year from now, depending on whether or not this card can get up to 88 miles per hour. When I say “given”, I mean it was apparently hand-delivered, given the lack of address or stamp. The “stamp” in this case is a very highly embossed Santa Claus face, cut by hand from something else — perhaps even from another postcard. Ida clearly put some time and thought into this card, but no, she’s not my great-grandmother.

All of the items around the main picture are embossed, though the main picture is not. I’m not sure what the items in the upper left corner are supposed to represent. Any ideas?

This birthday card was apparently hand-delivered to our lucky birthday boy or girl on “Sep the 6 1910″ by one Miss Rosa Cochran. It’s embossed and made of relatively thin card stock. It has apparently had something spilled on it at some point; notice the discoloration at the top, which is more easily noticed on the back side.

The most interesting thing about this card, however, is the use of the swastika in each of the four corners. For over 4,000 years, the swastika had been used as a symbol of good luck; it seems to have originated with the Indus Valley Civilization in modern India and is still used among Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains. It was used by ancient Greeks and Chinese emporers. It was very widely used among Western countries in the early 20th century for this purpose, which explains its use here.

Unfortunately, some crackpots came along and decided that the Proto-Indo-Europeans who used this symbol — “Aryans” as they had been termed in the 18th century — were some Nordic-Atlantean “master race”, decided that they were their descendants, and adopted their oldest symbol as their own. And that’s why we don’t use swastikas in Western culture anymore.

I haven’t posted in a few days because I’ve been busy Christmas shopping. And look what I found! These two Christmas ornaments seem to have started life as copies of vintage Christmas postcards (presumably copies, anyway, since there were duplicated designs in the store display). A little glitter, a couple of beads, and some silvery pipe-cleaner-type garnish later, you have something suitable for the Christmas tree. (We don’t put up a tree at the house, so these are living on the fireplace mantle instead.) Very nifty.

It’s unusual to find an older card featuring African-Americans that isn’t racially insensitive in some way. This card bears a copyright notice on the front from 1906 by the I. P. C. & N. Co. The two people and the doorway on this card are embossed, while the rest of it is not.

This card was sent from “K.K.” in Reading, Pennsylvania on December 18, 1908 to Mr. Morris Burger of St. Louis, Missouri. Other than the initials, there is no message.

As of this writing, I was able to find two identical cards listed in eBay Stores, each one going for just under $20. I paid about $2.30 for this card as part of a lot.

Here’s an embossed postcard from Great-Grandpa Phil’s collection. The front of the card has a notice reading “Design Copyright 1908, by M.W. Taggart, N.Y.” Note how this design incorporates a farm that apparently sits directly on a beach, complete with seagulls.

The card was mailed to Phil from Dunbar, Pennsylvania on November 22, 1910 (Thanksgiving would have fallen on the 24th that year) and is signed “OWS”. While I’m pretty certain that we had relatives there at the time, and while the “S” suggests another Smith, I am at a loss to recall who OWS might have been.

This is a Christmas postcard sent to my great-grandfather, in care of his father, James Henry Smith. It was sent perhaps as early as (but no earlier than) 1907. The sender is unknown, and there is no message.

This card has some unique features. For one thing, there is no indication (that I can see, even after close examination of the high-resolution scan) that there was ever a stamp placed on this card. There is a cancellation mark over the stampbox itself, with the number “1″ breaking one of the lines of the mark. Did this number denote that the one-penny postage had been paid? I have not seen another instance like it among my collection.

There is also the publisher’s mark: the notation “SL & CO” within a circle, and the circle with angel’s wings on either side. This is the mark of S. Langsdorf and Company, of New York and Germany. The card, like most pre-World War I cards, was printed in Germany and presumably exported to the New York office for sale in the United States.

There are several cards without messages in the collection (which will be posted, eventually), and many of those were apparently hand-delivered — probably similar to the way that the younger kids exchange Valentines today.

This card, from my great-grandfather’s collection, brings tidings of the new year of 1913 to Mr. John H. Greim of 715 Dick Street in Reading, Pennsylvania, from Emma Hinline. Alas, Dick Street no longer seems to exist in Reading, probably because eighth-graders kept stealing the street signs.

To my knowledge, Mr. Greim is no relation; he was probably an associate of Great-Grandpa’s dad, James Henry Smith, and passed the card along. Mr. Greim thoughtfully put the date of receipt (12/28/1912) on the front of the card, as the postmark bears no year. He was also kind enough to fill in Emma’s surname, as she signed the card “Emma H.”

Emma writes that she “Received your card. My head is slowly getting better. It may be a week or two more before it is quite well.” Of course, if she had loosened her corset, the blood would have drained from her head faster.

This embossed card was printed in Germany, which is fairly common of cards in the years leading up to World War I — after which the supply from Germany dried up. Also, one must flip this card on the long end, rather than on the short end, as with cards today.

Notice that this postcard was postmarked December 27 at 3:30 PM in Nazareth, PA and, if we are to believe the notation on the front, made it 50 miles to Reading the next day. Over turn-of-the-century country roads. For one cent’s worth of postage. Note to the Postal Service: shape up.

The 1920 census notes that Mr. Greim was 40 years old, making him 32 or so in 1912. While he apparently sent a nice card to Emma, he became a little more suspicious as he grew older. In 1927 (according to the Library of Congress), he dropped a note to President Calvin Coolidge, questioning whether or not Silent Cal’s endorsement of Webster’s Dictionary was unsolicited, and whether or not there was any consideration received:

I wonder what he had against the Webster people.