Ana recently found a cache of reprints of antique postcards, and I’m very happy to be one of the recipients. This view shows Skopje as it was at the turn of the 20th Century; at this time it was part of the Ottoman Empire.  But this city view might just as easily be turn of the century Chicago or New Orleans or Dallas.  Of course, it looks nothing like modern Skopje.

Nondas sent me this interesting reproduction of a post-war (that is, World War I) card, showing the town of Thessaloniki from the air. He’s also fond of these other, modern views of his town from the air.

This very clear view of Westminster Abbey (with Big Ben in the background) comes from Aimee Dars, a prolific swapper extraordinaire. This card was sold in England but produced by a company in Barcelona. Next to the stamp box, it has the phrase “the friendship post card” in ten languages.

Shirin sends along these vintage views of Singapore and reminds me that the Hotel Raffles, pictured at the top, is the birthplace of the Singapore Sling — meaning folks were sippin’ on gin and juice long before Snoop Dogg had something to say about it.

Also pictured are a Chinese junk, a snake charmer, and the Golden Sultan mosque. All of these things can still be seen in Singapore today — even a snake charmer, if you look hard enough.

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.

The description on this postcard (in Finnish) says that it is a reprint of a 1920 photo by Lauri Marjanen of Puijontie (“street of Puijo”) in Kuopio, Finland. Today, Puijo Hill is a major tourist attraction. In addition to one of Finland’s first nature preserves, an area of about two square kilometers (which doesn’t sound like much, but that works out to nearly 500 acres), Puijo is home to a winter sports center and frequently hosts Nordic Ski Jumping World Cup events.

At the peak of the 150-meter (~500 foot) hill is a 75-meter tall observation tower, complete with souvenir shop and rotating restaurant. Jenni, who sent this card along from Kuopio, says that, in 1920, there was a 24-meter observation tower at the top of the hill, presumably not as fancy. The old tower was demolished in 1963 to make way for the new one.

Tampere, Finland has a similar observation tower, called Näsinneula (see a postcard of Näsinneula here); they borrowed the idea of a rotating restaurant from Puijo Hill.

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.

One can only imagine how, in the 19th Century, expeditions would leave Europe to search for undiscovered places in the New World. They would leave amid great fanfare — and then there would be a complete vacuum of information on their progress for months (or even years) at a time, until they were able to dispatch a letter or, more likely, until their actual return home. Their exploits were often serialized in the press, day-for-day, and the reader could feel as though they were along for the journey, despite knowing that the actual journey had been long ended.

Almost 24 hours ago, I read online that my epistolary friend Sean McLachlan had completed his planned walk along Hadrian’s Wall.  Eighteen hours later, I received my first two snail-mailed dispatches from the trip. Antiquarian though I am, I must admit that the 21st Century has advantages. Not only do I have news on the trip in near-real time, but I also receive personal dispatches from the field after the fact.

I won’t post Sean’s dispatches; he’ll be chronicling the trip in Gadling beginning on 1 September and I don’t want to use his own words to steal his thunder.  But I will share the postcard images he sent, beginning with Day 1 from Segedunum.

From the postcard’s description: “Segedunum, the Roman fort at Wallsend. The eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall built in the middle AD 120s, it was occupied for nearly 300 years. Now it is the site of a new Museum, a full-size reconstruction of a Roman bath-house and a section of Hadrian’s Wall.”

According to this card, the walking route is the Hadrian’s Wall Path National Trail, and the trail (and the wall) stretch along for 84 miles.  By my reckoning, Sean walked the route in about a week. Personally, I would have started at the west end, so that I could have ended the journey at the reconstructed Roman baths, along with a box of Epsom salts.

Ramona was an 1884 novel by Helen Hunt Jackson which described the travails endured by our young half-Scottish half-Native American heroine, mostly due to racial discrimination. It was immensely popular, and many places in San Diego jumped on the popularity bandwagon, claiming to be the places portrayed in the novel. The Camulos Ranch, pictured above, had a valid claim; the author is known to have visited there during her research, and describes particular furnishings and other items at Camulos in great detail, despite having stayed there only a few hours.

This card is one among a group of six cards purchased at Ramona’s Marriage Place, another attraction, that I found in a shop as part of a lot of several California cards. Each of them has a “From Ramona’s Marriage Place” rubber stamp on the back, and were probably purchased at the same time by the same tourist.

None of the cards appears to be any newer than around 1915 at the very latest. This particular card is a very early Curt Teich “C. T. Photochrom” postcard, number A-33852, published in 1913.

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 card arrived a few days ago from Ana, hostess of My World of Postcards, who spent part of her summer in the Montenegrin Riviera.  She had sent it to an old post office box that I don’t have any more but, thankfully, the card was able to find me, all the way from the postcard rack where she first found it, pictured at right.  If you had asked me from what countries I never expected to have a card, Montenegro would certainly be at the top of the list.

Montenegro has an interesting history, first established as a political entity (originally called Duklja) in the year 1042, but has only occasionally been independent since then.  Throughout most of the 20th Century, it was unified with Serbia, but most recently declared independence in 2006.

By contrast, there is evidence that Budva was originally settled as long ago as the 5th Century B.C.  In the photo, you can see the influence of the Venetian Republic on the architecture; Venice had the strongest military and the most cultural influence throughout the region during the Middle Ages.

Budva has become quite the summer vacation hotspot, with good weather and great beaches.  Thanks to the popularity, the real estate market has been flooded with foreign buyers, and what was once a poor fishing village now has Europe’s greatest number of millionaires per capita.

“American Soldiers marching down the Rue Royal, July 14th, 1918, in the parade celebrating the Independence Day of France. In the background is seen La Madeleine, formerly the temple of glory which Napoleon I built in honor of the ‘Grande Armée’.”  From a painting by Josephe-Félix Bouchor, official painter to the French armies, who both saw and painted World War I.

This card was a gift from Eddy at D’hier à aujourd’hui (From Yesterday to Today), who presents antique picture postcards of Paris along with modern images of the same scenes.

A clarification: Bastille Day (or, as the French call it, the 14th of July), is not exactly “the Independence Day of France”; it simply marks the start of the French Revolution, in 1789.  Granted, there are military parades during the day and fireworks at night, but nobody in France is having people over for a cookout or drinking a toast to the Revolution.  More’s the pity.

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.

“‘The Spirit of ’76,’ also known as ‘Yankee Doodle,’ described as the most inspiring patriotic picture in America, hangs in the Town Fathers’ meeting room in Abbot Hall (in Marblehead, Massachusetts). Painted by A.M. Willard, it was presented to the Town in 1880 by General John Devereux, whose son was the model for the drummer boy.” This is a “Lusterchrome” card by Tichnor Bros., Boston 15, Mass.

The card notes that reproduction is prohibited without the express permission of the Board of Selectmen in Marblehead. So assiduously had they guarded this image over the years that the August 12, 1935 issue of Time magazine made special mention of a rare occasion on which they allowed the image to be reproduced.

…at least, I’m pretty sure it’s a kantele, which falls into the category of zithers, or lap-harps.  It’s related (according to Wikipedia) to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės; these instruments, along with the kantele, fall into the more narrow category of zithers known as psalteries.  I play (poorly) a much less sophisticated cousin of these instruments, called the mountain dulcimer or Appalachian dulcimer.  But there are varieties of kantele which have as few as five strings that might be within my ken.

The Finnish epic poem Kalevala holds that the mage Väinämöinen crafted the first kantele from the jawbone of a giant pike onto which his boat had run “aground”, as it were; he used hairs from a stallion’s mane for the strings.  The first kantele was lost in the sea after further misadventures, but Väinämöinen carved a new one from birchwood.

The Kalevala is a fascinating read, though I don’t anticipate tackling it in the original Finnish anytime soon.  Another fun read is The Wall of Serpents, part of the Compleat Enchanter comical fantasy series by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt.  In Serpents, a small party from our universe (along with Belphoebe, the huntress from Spenser’s The Faerie Queen) travel into the universe of the Kalevala and interact with all the major characters.  I recommend it highly.

My thanks, of course, to Kirsi for sending me this terrific postcard.  The kantele is renowned for its bell-like tones; please enjoy this sample.

This card is a gift from Thea in Australia, who visited this website and noted my fondness for history.  I have never seen a contemporary First Day of Issue postcard, nor have I seen a modern card that is stamped on the “wrong” side.  It is not only fascinating, but fitting, given the subject matter.

Pictured is the Nimrod, a then-40-year-old Norwegian sealer which Ernest Shackleton bought in 1907 as part of an expedition to Antarctica, in search of the South Pole.  Shackleton had previously been Third Officer on board the Discovery as part of Robert Scott’s 1901-1904 expedition, but was sent home in 1903 after contracting scurvy.  Shackleton thought of nothing else but returning to Antartica, however, and of driving even farther south than Scott — after promising Scott that he would use a different base and route to the Pole. He successfully reached the magnetic pole, but the expedition had to turn around just 97 miles short of the geographic pole.

The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust has this to say about the car:

(Shackleton) selected a 12-15 horse-power New Arrol Johnston car, fitted with a specially designed air-cooled, four cylinder engine. Other innovations included Price’s non-freezing oil, a silencer to act as a foot warmer, the passing of the exhaust pipe through a hopper which could be filled with snow to provide hot water, wheels of special patterns, standard car wheels with conventional rubber tyres and ski runners for the front wheels to rest on.

When the car was unloaded from the Nimrod and given a trail run on the sea ice, the wheels became clogged with snow. Shackleton said, “the driving wheels were a great source of trouble; the heavy rear wheels sank into even the hardest snow”. Eventually it became necessary to lighten the weight of the car and next spring, using rubber wheels with chains, mechanic Day was able to tow sledges over the sea ice for up to 14 miles (22 km) and return.

With departure of the expedition in 1909, the car was loaded on Nimrod for return to England but it appears to have not been unloaded. It is thought the vehicle was washed overboard in a storm.

However, the prefabricated timber hut that the expedition used as their base still stands, after 100 years.

“The lone San Diego Mission Palm is the one remaining of the original four planted in 1769. Two were sent to Chicago to the Worlds Fair in 1892 and the third was blown down in 1913 while the fourth is pining for its mates and is losing strength rapidly.” This description comes from the back of this Curt Teich “C. T. Photochrom”, number A-48679, published in 1914. I am not able to find mention of this mission palm in any contemporary accounts, and am forced to assume that it no longer exists.

This card is one among a group of six cards purchased at Ramona’s Marriage Place, a tourist attraction, that I found in a shop as part of a lot of several California cards. Each of them has a “From Ramona’s Marriage Place” rubber stamp on the back, and were probably purchased at the same time by the same tourist. None of the six cards appears to be any newer than around 1915 at the very latest.

This postcard is made of actual leather, which was apparently something of a novelty back in the day.  It’s still possible to find early postcards made out of things like wood and aluminum.

Pictured is the conference building in the Portsmouth Navy Yard where the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed on September 5, 1905, bringing an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

This is one of four leather postcards that I own that were addressed to Miss Grace Hoare of Lowell, Massachusetts, and which I picked up during a vacation in New England.  It is postmarked July 20, 1907, but was apparently manufactured prior to March of 1907, when postcards with divided backs became legal in the United States.

Ramona was an 1884 novel by Helen Hunt Jackson which described the travails endured by our young half-Scottish half-Native American heroine, mostly due to racial discrimination. It was immensely popular, and many places in San Diego jumped on the popularity bandwagon, claiming to be the places portrayed in the novel. The Camulos Ranch, pictured above, had a valid claim; the author is known to have visited there during her research, and describes particular furnishings and other items at Camulos in great detail, despite having stayed there only a few hours.

This card is one among a group of six cards purchased at Ramona’s Marriage Place, another attraction, that I found in a shop as part of a lot of several California cards. Each of them has a “From Ramona’s Marriage Place” rubber stamp on the back, and were probably purchased at the same time by the same tourist.

None of the cards appears to be any newer than around 1915 at the very latest. This particular card was published by Edward H. Mitchell of San Francisco.

This card ostensibly depicts the very first stagecoach in California but, given that it was located at a well-known tourist trap, I am hard-pressed to believe it.

This card is one among a group of six Ramona-based cards that I found in a shop as part of a lot of several California cards. Each of them has a “From Ramona’s Marriage Place” rubber stamp on the back, and were probably purchased at the location itself, at the same time by the same tourist.

None of the cards appears to be any newer than around 1915 at the very latest. This particular card was published by Edward H. Mitchell of San Francisco.