Howdy, pardners!

This is a Union Pacific Railroad Pictorial Post Card — basically a commercial that you get to pay for. “A summer vacation outing on one of these Western guest ranches provides zestful recreation and healthful activities that can scarcely be duplicated elsewhere.” Well, with the possible exception of nudist colonies. Oh, forgive me, I didn’t mean to interrupt the commercial message: “Union Pacific Railroad serves the Dude Ranch country.” Ah, there it is.

Despite the lack of mention on the card, this is an obvious Curt Teich card, number 6B-H1205, with the number indicating manufacture in 1946. I know that Teich manufactured cards on spec for hundreds of organizations, but I can’t recall any other card that doesn’t have his publication data on it. I am amazed at how much of the original color remains. Our friend Lloyd Stoltz posted it to fellow collector Kay Anthony on March 12, 1952, from his home in Reading, PA.

Lloyd has changed his address.

Lloyd begins with “Greetings, Kay,” then immediately follows it with “D” in quotation marks; two small X’s, one on top of the other; then a long dash (for you computer geeks, I mean an em dash as opposed to an en dash or hyphen). Could Lloyd have invented the emoticon? He continues: “Could use one of these horses to catch up. Please note the change of address, just to keep in touch with you. Having an awful tough time trying to get straightened out or back to normal, if such a thing is possible? Here’s hoping you are doing fine. Joyful Wishes Pal,” and then he signs it with his own “LS” ideogram.

Greetings from Gaffney, South Carolina

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.

She apparently corresponded with several people specifically for the purpose of trading postcards. How did one get in touch back then with others who wanted to trade postcards? Classified ads? Was there some sort of club for people with short attention spans who liked the pretty pictures on the cards? Sign me up!

One of her regular correspondents was a man named Lloyd Stoltz of Reading, Pennsylvania, who was a fastidious individual. His handwriting is incredibly tiny, perhaps intentionally so that he could get a lot of information onto a postcard. Also, he signed his cards with his own little ideogram, combining the letters “L” and “S”, and many of his cards have a small rubber stamp impression of his full initials, “L.P.M.S.”

There is a slight musty smell to the cards (which has been clearing now that they’ve been removed from their album), which leads me to believe that they have been stored away for decades. Not having seen the light of day, the colors on the cards are brilliant.

I plan to start posting some of her cards in a week or so; I hope you enjoy.

Today on a whim, I stopped by an antique shop on my lunch break, one that I’ve driven by dozens of times in the course of my work. I scored what appears to be four separate collections of cards. Although the cards were being sold individually for $2 or $3, I was able to make a deal and walked off with every postcard the man had for about 12 cents each.

The first collection was a small group of humorous linen postcards from the 1930s, inside of a brown album with the legend “Post-Cards” on the front. The album appears to be contemporary with the cards and was sold to the original owner (according to a sticker inside the front cover) by E.H. Ketchum Co., Stationers, 24 Main Street, Jamestown, NY. There were several duplicates, which will wind up on eBay; I’ll be posting each card to the site around the same time that I post the duplicates on eBay.

The second collection was in a 1950s-era white photo album, containing mostly linen postcards from the late 40s, with some early chrome postcards from the 50s and 60s. About 15-20% of them were addressed to Miss Kay Anthony of Spartanburg, SC; it appears that she had a few regular correspondents, and that their goal was to exchange postcards for their collections. Kay had almost 200 postcards in her album.

The third collection was in a 1970s-era brown photo album, and contained mostly vintage chromes, but with several early white-border cards and linens, along with a lot of deckled Continental-sized cards from the 70s. The album was designed to hold 304 photos and was full of that number of cards. In addition, in pockets on the inside front and back covers, was a lot of ephemera: souvenir shop pictures of local sights, ridiculously oversized souvenir postcards, and the like.

Last but not least, the fourth collection was a cardboard box with just over 500 cards, another very good mix, but again mostly vintage and modern chromes. It also contained a couple dozen souvenir books. A great many of the cards were written by someone called “Wart” from places across the US, sent back to a couple in Stone Mountain, GA (probably Mom and Dad). In future posts I will refer to cards from this box as the Wart Collection; while the phrase itself sounds disgusting, it’s short and to the point. Wart was kind enough to have purchased a few duplicate postcards here and there as well, mostly of things like aircraft from the Smithsonian.

In other words, my collection has almost doubled overnight, but I’m still sticking with my plan to post an average of a postcard a day (well, maybe three or four on weekends). I don’t expect to start posting any cards from these new collections for at least a couple of weeks — not until I figure out what I have.

Oh, lest I forget, in today’s mail, there was another batch of 102 cards from Florida, mostly linens with the odd white-border or vintage chrome. I bought these on a whim on eBay because these cards remind my wife of her childhood there.

I hope you’ll enjoy seeing all these cards; I’m looking forward to posting them.

Greetings from South Carolina

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.”

Mr. Boyd just had to get away with his folks.