You could buy a postcard from many places and send one to your mates, family or boyfriend or girlfriend. You can chose from a special topic, a vintage photo of your city or the city you are at this moment; you can send a flower or your favorite animal; you can even send a vintage humor postcard to make fun of your friends. Try it. It’s really GREAT experience!
Let’s see some history…
In 1861, John Charlton of Philadelphia created the first private postal card and applied for a patent on Dec. 17, 1861. He sold the idea to H. L. Lipman, who printed cards marked “Lipman’s Postal Cards.”
Government postcards came onto the market in 1873. Postcards were novelties because of the pictures and designs that they used. By 1907, millions of postcards were in circulation, and in 1906, Eastman Kodak made a camera called the “Folding Pocket Camera” to create postcards out of photographs. “Postal Card” quickly became a term reserved to cards printed by the Post Office. Privately printed cards which required stamps for posting were called “private mailing cards” and later “postcards.” “Postal card,” or “postal,” is still a term most appropriately applied to a particular type of official postal stationery.
Deltiology is the collection and study of postcards. A person who conducts research on postcards is called a deltiologist. In Greek, deltiology means the science or study of small pictures or cards (deltion).
Quite small, the space on the back of a postcard can often seem intimidating. It wouldn’t take a great deal of imagination to write a message that didn’t require privacy on one side of a stiff card, address and stamp the other side, and put in the mail. But I’m sure you can figure that out!
You could check out some in my Shop on eCharta:
Cities from all over the world
Humor postcards – great ideas!
Collect your ships…
“It’s heaven when you find romance on your menu”
“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.”
Postcards are visual artifacts of history, and, depicting images that range from pictures to paintings, they are also a form of art. Let’s not lose this great experience from our lives.
It’s up to us…
primarolia NYC 
Reblogged this on Coffee & Camera in Hand and commented:
Because I love postcards!
While I’ve not written (postal) letters to family and friends in a few years now, I still send the occasional postcards when I travel. The space at the back of a postcard may be small, but sometimes you don’t need to say a lot to tell someone that you’ve been thinking of him/her/them from wherever you’re at 🙂
Awesome postcards
Enjoyed your post–well done.
I collected them for many years and still have a great weakness for them. Enjoyed your post and learned a little. 🙂
Like really does attract like sometimes-doesn’t it?
How interesting for me to see this. I was definitely honking that I should have my images printed on postcards. I love postcards!
…And I had no idea that there is such a person dedicated to studying postcards. I could do that 😀
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Pretty cool thing you’ve got going here.
We could all use vintage postcards to communicate with friends and family! Thanks for flying by 🙂
How interesting. I love postcards and have a small collection. I liked reading your history lesson about them.
Cool postcards! Thank you for signing up to follow my blog! I hope that you will enjoy my posts! – B
As a collector of paper ephemera, I agree wholeheartedly. Postcards are like an illustrated “freeze frame” moment in time. It would be a great pity were they to fall entirely into disuse.
You so right Rod! It’s up to us to keep this peace of paper history alive 🙂 Check eCharta.com. It’s a great try for paper lovers.
Postcards — one of my absolutely fave things. Interesting post!
Thank you Elen for flying by 🙂
Really interesting post on postcards. I’m glad to have discovered your blog! Thank you so much for visiting and supporting me at Engaging. I look forward to visiting you again!
Lovely post cards! I adore the idea of sending them to people as a way to travel through history and keep history alive. I’m always writing letters to people and I could definitely see myself enjoying the process of finding old postcards and passing them on. Thanks for the inspiration!
Fantastic post, classic postcards used to be but being the norm I never paid much attention…now I feel like collecting them. A wonderful reminder.
Dean–Your fascination with “paper” could be contagious. Love the old postcards and old photos you’ve shared. I’ve already thanked you for visiting my site before, but THANKS for subscribing to my funny-caption photoblog! I hope I can bring you a smile (or at least a groan) every weekday!
–John Robinson
I still send postcards – and long may they live!
Vintage postcards are such gems of history–thanks for posting this!
I was never good in sending postcards… every time I tried, I selfishly wanted to keep them for myself… my ‘postcard drawer’ is my ‘witness’!…