I Miss Postcards

I always hated them...those and birthday cards.

They're utterly pointless.

That's something I think would be fun to do. Traveling around the world and sending back creative and fun post cards. I'm sure many mail men had fun reading them, too. With the internet now people probably don't do it as much. So much has changed.

I used to collect postcards and I still have a shoebox full of postcards from around the world.... collected during my travels.

There are many artistic ones...not just of landmarks

Leaving this here ...

I like postcards for their history. The changing color palettes, subject matter, their tone (Chamber of Commerce hard sells, or deadly succinct), the medium (black-&-white or color photography adorned with tinting or highlighted in glitter). Postcards of mundane things. Advertising postcards. Postcards associated with standard subjects: banks, public buildings, post offices, the grand house in some small town, hotels, diners, motels, restaurants, department stores, street scenes.

What's written on old postcards are the dreams of insomniacs, the most mundane of things, usually with an odd word left or two omitted for economy. I love the early 20thC photos of a hotel or guest house with an x drawn in pen on one window: "this was our room."

But contemporary postcards? No. Never liked them or sent them any more than I felt quite obliged to do. I disliked the expectation that some people had, asking you to send them cards while on your travels. What a nuisance and what a waste of everyone's time.

I've had friends who would write missives (as long as reasonably possible) on the back of antique or kitschy postcards. That was fun but at some point in the the search for expression of our inner selves, even these became tedious.

Mostly they were a pain in the ass to send, and pointless to receive.

[quote]r2 = They're utterly pointless.

Only to you.

Sorry.

I meant to type, "I'm Miss Postcards."

[quote]I meant to type, "I'm Miss Postcards."

Bless your heart, r8/OP.

OP I worked at a couple of the Smithsonian museums and the national gallery or art a couple of years ago-- they sell A LOT of postcards. It is still at thing.

They're beautiful captures of history and they take up little space. Some people get a *kick* out of them.

I used to tell vacationing co-workers to 'send us a postcard' from wherever they were off to, and received blank stares (but no postcard).

I am poster r10. I worked at the gift stores at the air and space museum, the national gallery of art, the Newseum (now gone), the American Indian museum, and the national cathedral around 2017-2020 and post cards were top sellers especially at the national gallery of art. I am surprised we didn't sell stamps. Not sure people actual sent the post cards or if they just collected it for themselves.

My parents just sold their house and I had to pack up all my old records, school stuff and letters I had stored in their attic. As I was flipping through all the pre internet letters and postcards I was wondering the same thing. Postcards are lovely air kisses from exotic lands

(Also wondered how any of my professors were ever able to parse my tiny cramped cursive, page after page of it on my essays and exams )

I love post cards of old school Holiday Inns, Ramada Inns, Howard Johnsons, Best Western and Quality Court motels/motor hotels from the 1960s and early 1970s.

R15

Like these?

I have a bunch of old ones I've collected. I think they're beautiful.

r15 They should bring that back. It is easy promotion.

Sort of unrelated, but I run a local advocacy group. We would have "postcard parties" where we would write and send a post card to city council members lobbying for a specific cause and bill. Cheaper than sending letters and is more eye catching.

I always buy them at art museums. Sometimes I'll send one instead of a birthday card.

I still buy them at the Jersey shore