With the advent of the Internet and email, the sending of post cards, whether from a holiday spot or as a general method of communication, has declined over recent years. Postcards are still one of the most popular items to collect and the collecting of postcards is known as deltiology.
At this point it is best to define what a post card is, as it is different from a postal card. Postcards are usually printed by an organisation or individual and to conform to the US postal service regulations must be at least 3½ x 5 inches and no more than 4½ x 6 inches. Postal cards come with a pre-printed stamp already on them.
US postcard history
In 1861 John Charlton of Philadelphia patented the first postcard. He sold the rights to H L Lipman who marketed them as Lipman’s postal cards. They had a small decorative border and were in circulation until 1873 when the government issued their own pre-stamped postal cards. Postal cards were a cheap and easy way to send notes to one another and the US Postal Service held the monopoly on printing postcards until 1898 when Congress passed and act allowing private companies to print postcards. In 1901 the words ‘post card’ first appeared and the address had to be written on this side whilst the message appeared on the reverse along with the picture. The ‘divided back’ postcard with a line dividing the note from the address came into use in 1907 and this is the form of card we recognise today.
European postcard history
The first postcard where a stamp had to be affixed was printed in Austria in 1869. The popularity of the postcard spread quickly across Europe with Britain having its first cards in 1870, France by 1872 and Germany in 1874. But the postcard did bring with it some issues as the pictures on the card could be sent across European borders, and what was OK in one country may been deemed inappropriate in another. In France bawdy postcards appeared in 1910 causing controversy.
British seaside postcards
The British seaside postcard often referred to as a saucy postcard due to its risque cartoon content, started to appear in the early 1930’s. The sending of these cards became very popular with 16 million sent in one year at its height. To many the saucy postcard along with the ‘what the butler saw’ machines on the pier were a light relief from the conservative moral standards of the time. For others they were just plain disgusting. This came to a head in 1954 when Donald McGill (a cartoonist who produced around 12,000 designs and sold over 200 million cards) was prosecuted under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act. McGill was found guilty and fined £50. The result of this trial was that the saucy postcard all but died and it wasn’t until the more liberal 1960’s that the card reappeared. By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s tastes had changed and the popularity of the British saucy postcard declined. and in 1990 Bamforth & Co, one of the largest producers of postcards closed down.
We have a large collection of 1:12th and 1:24th scale postcards on our web shop