Postcrossing Blog

Today we’d like to present you a special kind of postcards… linen postcards! Have you ever heard of them, or received one?

By the name alone, one might imagine that linen postcards were made from… well… linen! However, while the surface pattern of the card resembled linen fabric, the cards were actually made from a very inexpensive paper stock with a high rag content and finished with a pattern that resembles the crosshatched surface of linen. The reverse side of these kinds of cards was smooth like other postcards.

Linen postcards were extremely popular from the early 1930’s to 1945, when they were ultimately replaced with photochrome postcards, boasting a glossy finish and realistic looking photos. Some manufacturers, mostly located in the south of the United States, still produced linen cards up until the 50’s and 60’s. During their heyday, the biggest publishing company of top-notch linen postcards was Teich. Founded in 1898, they didn’t receive any real recognition until they began to come out with imaginative scenes on their linen postcards. They were the ones responsible for the creation of the Large Letter postcards, remember?

It was owner Curt Teich who realized that by creating more of a surface area on the cards, you enabled the heatset inks to dry faster, allowing the dyes to remain stronger on the surface. This concept gave linen postcards their unique vivid color, which was a huge advance from the previously popular “white border” postcards that could only muster up a bland and blurry finish.

The subject matter of linens was extremely varied, ranging from town and scenic views, to interiors and comics. Roadside establishments such as diners, motels, bus and gas stations were also showcased, representing a significant era of American culture. Some companies also used these cards as a way to advertise their products. These cards alone document many important events in history, making them quite valuable as collectibles.

I must confess I quite like them because of their unusual texture! :) Have you ever received on of these? What do you think of them?

How do you imagine things will look like one hundred years from now? Minority Report-style interfaces? Teleportation? Universal translators? Or perhaps space colonies… It’s hard to make predictions, right?

100 years ago, French artist Villemard did just that, in a magnificent collection of postcards which Vivento brought to our attention some days ago. They provide a delightful glimpse into the imagination of our great-grandparents, and what they thought the future would look like in the year 2000. The postcards are currently owned by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, who suggests they might have been used to accompany food products, similar to Hildebrand’s chocolate packaging.

Some predictions were rather accurate, others… not so much. Take a look:

An operator would sit in its cubicle, while machines would break rocks and assemble a building.

Firemen had wings to better fight fires!

In the school, books were somehow processed in a machine (with a hand-powered crank) and then transmitted to students.

A chemical dinner – it’s funny how a meal was portrayed in a very elaborate and formal setting, even if food had been condensed into pills and could technically be swallowed in 2 seconds…

At the tailor, measurements would be mechanically taken, and a machine would then produce a suit from rolls of fabric.

Interestingly, some things weren’t going to to change all that much in Villemard’s imagination… like fashion sense! :)

The collection consists of 25 postcards, and they’re all fascinating – with lots of flying machines! You can check them out on Tom Wigley’s set on Flickr.

Today we bring you the story of a stationery maker from another era… you’ve probably seen her designs in vintage cards floating around on Ebay – today we bring you the story behind them! :)

Ellen Hattie Clapsaddle was an American illustrator and the most prolific postcard and greeting card artist of her time. She was born in 1865 in South Columbia, New York, about 200 miles from New York City. From an early age she displayed great artistic ability. Encouraged by her parents and teachers to develop her skills, she eventually pursued a career in art. After finishing her studies at Cooper Union Institute for the Advancement of Science and Art, a well-renowned and competitive college for artists, she returned to South Columbia and began giving art lessons out of her home.

While earning a living, she also painted in her free time, creating landscapes and commissioned portraits of families in Richfield Springs. She began to submit her work to publishers in NYC and quickly became known for her illustrations that were used in advertising, calendars, paper fans, and greeting cards, where she gained her most success. Eventually, her artwork was turned into single-faced cards that could be kept as souvenirs or used as postcards. She began to design her illustrations particularly for these increasingly popular cards.

In 1906, the Wolf Company hired her at a time where very few women artists were hired as illustrators. Clapsaddle initially produced her postcards under Wolf’s name and in time became their sole postcard designer. The golden age of these postcards ranged from 1898 to 1915, and Clapsaddle is attributed to creating over 3,000 designs during this time.

Her images express an innocence and joie de vivre that is very childlike in nature. The main themes of her cards are centered on holidays. Her Halloween cards are the most highly prized by collectors; the Christmas cards usually feature children, but sometimes include transportation designs of automobiles and airplanes of that time period; Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s, and Fourth of July themes were also frequently incorporated in her illustrations.

Check out some classic Ellen Clapsaddle cards here!

PS – PostEurop’s Europa Stamp competition ends this week – don’t forget to vote for your favourite stamp! :)

Ever since souvenir picture postcards made their USA debut at Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, postcards touting images of cities began sprouting up everywhere. Although several firms manufactured the popular big letter “Greetings from…” USA postcards, one company in particular really made the process their own – Teich Company (pronounced “Tike”).

Based in Chicago, America’s number one printing town, this family of printers created thousands of charming designs showcasing tourist attractions all over America, but hit the jackpot when they invented the processes to create the unique look their big letter designs are known for. Easily identified by their bold colors and bigger-than-life images, Teich’s patented methods of fabrication were so exact and involved (and kept secret by founder Curt Teich), it is almost impossible to perfectly recreate these sought-after collectors items, even with present-day technology.

No town was too small or obscure for Teich to manifest in postcard form; in 1933, Teich began producing their line of “Greetings from…” designs and by 1956 they made around 1,000 individual designs, paying homage to American cities in all 50 states (and to the states themselves).

After the company closed in 1978, their archives were donated to the Lake County Discovery Museum, in Illinois, which now runs a museum with them. The Curt Teich Postcard Archives contains over 350,000 postcards, and the collection is considered the biggest public postcard collection in the world.

BONUS: For all the photoshoppers out there, here are step-by-step instructions for making your very own big letter souvenir postcard! Enjoy!

We can probably all agree receiving a postcard in the mail from an exotic faraway place is one of the more exciting things that might happen in a day… but did you know that some decades ago, a pharmaceutical company used this precise notion to come up with one of the most unique marketing schemes of all time? Read on – it’s a good story!

Between the years 1954 and 1968, Abbott Laboratories of Illinois sent out 240,000 postcards every couple of weeks to doctors, nurses, and health facilities all over the world. They manufactured, stamped, and postmarked over 170 unique postcards from 165 different towns in 85 countries. The postcards’ authenticity of origin intrigued the recipients, increasing their overall effectiveness.

Each card began with the salutation, “Dear Doctor, ” except for several versions sent to non-doctors that omitted this greeting and just had the message. The pictures on the cards displayed local scenes portraying the place, culture, or people of the particular country it was mailed from. The entertaining message on the back was written in a friendly tone, and never forgot to plug their prized product—an intravenous anesthetic by the name of Pentothal. This drug, by the way, is still used today not only for its anaesthetic effects, but also in some places for its truth serum properties!

It is a bit of a mystery how this novel idea originated. In an article by Daniel Friedman, one Abbott employee, Dean Carson, was quoted saying, “I just came up with this idea and they said it was fine.” Others speculate it was either the Abbott advertising executive, Tom Bird or Charless Hahn, the Chicago Sun Times stamp editor, who had previously collaborated on a magazine together advertising Abbott products to doctors in Latin America.

Whoever actually invented this genius marketing method back then probably didn’t fully realize the extent of popularity these postcards possess among present-day collectors. In September 2012, a bunch of Dear Doctor postcards were sold on eBay raking in hundreds of dollars for each card—the record price was $298!

Impressive, isn’t it?

By the way, the photos that illustrate this post come from the collection of Tom Fortunato, who graciously allowed us to use them. Tom runs deardoctorpostcards.com, a website for Dear Doctor postcard collectors – check it out!