Wild Postcards

In honor of the Marine Corps Birthday, here is one of the few (and proud, I suppose) Marine Corps cards in my collection. The colors on this card are great, despite being a bit faded from age. There’s some wear on each corner; it might have lived inside an album for a time. I’m going to guess that it was manufactured around 1945; the card is postally unused. It was made by the E.C. Kropp Company of Milwaukee.

Here’s what the Official Website for Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton has to say about the site’s history:

In 1769, a Spaniard by the name of Capt. Gaspar de Portola led an expeditionary force northward from lower California, seeking to establish Franciscan missions throughout California. On July 20 of that same year, the expedition arrived at a location now known as Camp Pendleton, and as it was the holy day St. Margaret, they baptized the land in the name of Santa Margarita.

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I continue to be amazed at the vivid colors from Kay Anthony’s postcard collection. This is a “Genuine Curteich C.T. Art-Colortone”, number 2B-H1375, indicating manufacture in 1932. The resolution is also remarkable; you can make out a Coca-Cola sign on the building inside the letter E.

Kay’s home in Spartanburg was only 20 miles down what used to be the Georgia Highway (for my fellow Yankees, that means if you follow the highway long enough, you would reach Georgia) from Gaffney; it’s now the “Old Georgia Highway” and part of US Route 29. My friend James says she probably picked it up at the corner drug store, where it probably sat on a rack for years. It looks like she didn’t start collecting until the mid- to late-1940s.

 

“Famed throughout the world is Atlantic City’s Boardwalk. The Boardwalk overlooks the ocean and wide expanse of beach. There are eight miles lined with magnificent hotels, theatres and shops.” Now you know why the Boardwalk costs so much in Monopoly.

Unlike most large-letter cards, this one has a single scene of the Boardwalk, beach and ocean that spans all letters, instead of an individual scene in each letter. The card was published by Tichnor Bros. of Boston.

 

This is a beautiful, large-letter linen postcard in pristine condition (other than some fading due to age). Large letter postcards usually begin with “Greetings from…” and have various scenes of the location in each letter of the place name. If you’ve ever seen the album art from Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., it’s another great example. (I have that album on vinyl.)

Large-letter postcards are often highly prized by collectors, and as such are generally priced fairly high.

This card was made by the Eastern Photo Litho Company of Lowell, Massachusetts, and published by “Switzer Card Service, Watertown 72, Mass.” The use of the postal zone number places manufacture after 1943, and I’d be surprised if this card were manufactured any later than 1945.

 

This is a large-letter linen postcard, another personal message from Daisy Boyd to Great-Grandma Lottie. It was posted from Spartanburg, South Carolina on May 24, 1953. Daisy writes (typos in the original): “Dear Mrs. Smith. Hope your both feeling fine. We feel some better Mr. Boyd just had to get away with his folks. Haveing nice time picnicks & fishing eaten big ones. Will see you all some time this summer. Mrs. H. Boyd.”

From these postcards from Daisy Boyd, it sounds as if Homer (Mr. Boyd) used to love to leave Pennsylvania on a moment’s notice and go see the old folks down in South Cackalacky.