October 1 is International Post Card Day, and what better way to celebrate than to consider a visit to the Washington Crossing Card Collectors Club?
The nonprofit group’s 200 or so members come from up and down both sides of the Delaware River and around the Delaware Valley. It’s been meeting for decades at the Union Fire Company Hall on Route 29 in Titusville.
While the members and other collectors celebrate postcards every day, the general public probably hasn’t given them much consideration.
Yet, as the Portugal-based World Postcard Day organization shows, post cards are an interesting part of history and culture.
The group is quick to say that tracing the history of postcards “is difficult because postcards were not simply invented — instead, they evolved. Their history is inevitably linked with the development of the postal service, but also features innovations in printing and photography.”
However, WPD writers say that the popularity of the printing press, the use of calling cards, and pre-paid letter sheets paved the way for the sending a simple message with an image.
Then, as the WPD notes, “In Austria-Hungary, Dr. Emanuel Herrmann (a professor of economics from Vienna) wrote an article in the Neue Freie Presse pointing out that the time and effort involved in writing a letter was out of proportion to the size of the message sent. He suggested that a more practical and cheaper method should be implemented for shorter, more efficient communications.
“His recommendations impressed the Austrian Post, who put them to practice on October 1st 1869, resulting in the ‘Correspondenz-Karte,’ a light-brown 8.5x12cm rectangle with space for the address on the front, and room for a short message on the back. The postcard featured an imprinted 2 Kreuzer stamp on top right corner, costing half the price of a normal letter. (And) the postcard was born!”
The instant messaging of their time, postcards became a popular way to say tell someone you were thinking of them, joke around, or say hello while in a distant land.
It also became popular with printers and companies who hired artists and photographers to create attractive or fun images that the senders wanted to be associated with.
And after a century of millions of people sending millions of postcards, it was inevitable that others would start to collect and categorize them.
But what is it that fascinates people enough to do so?
WCCCC member Bob Pellegrini shares his own story in a recent club newsletter — it similar to other stories heard during the group’s monthly Monday-night meetings.
“I came to postcards as collectibles in an evolution in collecting. I can remember as a youngster having two small shelves in a small closet in a room shared with my younger brother. Perched on the top shelf in a shoebox of treasures found in the neighborhood and the backyard, e.g., a desiccated praying mantis and a black widow spider preserved in small jars in formaldehyde and an empty paper wasp nest.
“As I got older I collected comic books and baseball cards. My collecting interests shifted to books — both first editions and autographed by the author. I still collect some now but must admit they are rare these days and usually only aviation related.
“Aviation runs as a theme through all my collections. I still hold my private pilot’s license and have a keen interest in all things aviation. Autographs of pilots is my main focus, especially from the World War II era.
“Most of my autographs were gotten directly from the aviators and war heroes at air shows and aviation museum events.
“After my flying days were over I was sort of casting about for a new area to explore. I must admit I had already begun to collect a few local Middletown, NJ, cards and having known (fellow member) Randy Gabriellan for a number of years was intrigued by his ‘postcard’ history books.
“Postcards appealed to me because they, like stamps, were miniature pictures in time and place. They were small, portable pieces of information about the past and powerful memory joggers.
“My curiosity was increased when I attended a spring postcard show run by John McGrath in Belmar, NJ. It was there I met a large, gregarious, and knowledge- able postcard collector and dealer Gary Dubnick. He was also president of the Jersey Shore Postcard Club and cajoled me into joining it.
“I asked if there were any postcards with aviation themes, and he pointed out his items for sale and numerous other dealers who had ‘airplane cards.’ The first three collected aviation cards . . . show three bombers flown in by my favorite WW II aviator — my dad.
“The planes shown are a Martin B-26 Marauder, the North American B-25 Mitchell, and the Douglas A-26 Invader. He flew as bombardier-navigator for a total of 32 missions in Europe and 9 missions over Japan.
“I’ve found postcard collecting to be eminently rewarding and sometimes frustrating but never regretted getting into the hobby.”
In addition to collecting, post card enthusiasts can also participate in “Postcarding.”
As another WCCCC entry explains, back in 2005, Paulo Magalhaes, a young computer programmer in Portugal, had gotten tired of finding junk, bills, and bad news in his mailbox and decided to fight back by sending out postcards to friends and relatives. He also tracked what he sent with a website.
Inspired by the idea of bookcrossing, the practice encouraging booklovers to exchange books with booklovers or strangers at various venues, Magalhaes came up with the term “postcrossing” and encouraged others to send cards to others — including strangers.
As with Magalhaes’ original efforts, postcrossing participants also logged postcard info onto a website.
As the newsletter entry continues, “Eighteen years later, nearly a million people have sent 72 million postcards around the world while uploading 52 million images of those cards onto the website for viewing. For years, between 400,000 and 500,000 a month have been sent and received around the world in good times and bad, including recessions, pandemics, and wars. People love the surprise of finding a friendly postcard in their mailbox.”
Those interested in seeing what postcrossing is all about or even getting involved simply need to go to the, you guessed it, postcrossing.com.
There visitors will find simple links to explore the site, read blog entries about a variety of postcard related topics, and how to join and get sending.
It is also currently declaring, “We’re in countdown mode for World Postcard Day.”
Consider that a very big stamp of approval.
Those interested in learning more about postcard collecting can connect with the Washington Crossing Card Collecting Club. The next meeting — an October Postcard Fest — is set for Monday, October 9, at the Union Fire Company, 1396 River Road (NJ-29), Titusville. wc4postcards.org.
For more, visit the U.S. 1 online archives and read the August 3, 2022, article “Greetings from the Washington Crossing Card Collectors.”
