Holiday Spirit

Absolut vodka ads are some of the best ads and are probably the most collectible of the free rack cards. This is an older Maxracks card I have.

If you want to read about Absolut Bling-bling, just read the entry at style.com. I followed the link to www.absolut.com/blingbling and think it is absolut(e)ly the worst Flash site I have seen. Don't even try it unless you have a very fast internet connection.

The www.maxracks.com website is worth a visit, however. You can read about their cards and also send e-cards.

Christmas Express

Today is "Cyber Monday" according to the morning news—the day to go shopping online. This card is as close as I can get to the subject of online shopping on postcards. It was good for a 15% saving in any Express store (offer expired 1/31/98).

I checked out the web address on the back of the postcard: http://express.style.com which took me to www.style.com which turned out to be the online home of Vogue & W magazines. After some searching, I found http://www.expressfashion.com/ which is the Express stores website. It is a nice website if you are looking for fashion sites, but you can't order anything there. They advertise "see it here buy it in the store." At first I thought that was strange. When I thought about it, however, I realized that I actually prefer picking out an item online and then going to a local store to buy it.

I was interested to learn from the www.style.com website that the "item of the week" is Absolut Bling-bling, a limited edition bottle of Absolut vodka.

Put It On the Card

Today is Black Friday, the day to take your credit card and go shopping.

It's a nice fall day in Minnesota—the temperature was 44° early this morning. That's warm for Minnesota in late November. This advertising postcard is ©1991. That was the year we had 28" of snow for Halloween, and all of November felt like a disaster.

I wish I would get some nice postcards like this from credit card companies instead of all those fake credit cards stuck to letters and enclosed in envelopes. I just cut up every one of those without even opening the envelope.

Submit Your Suggestions Here

Do you have any suggestions for postcard topics you would like to see? If you do, please submit a comment to this post. My collection includes a lot of topics, but this old Howard Johnson card seems to be the only one I have on suggestions.

Patriotic Thanksgiving Greetings

Flags and patriotic images aren't seen on today's Thanksgiving cards, but they were frequently used on early Thanksgiving postcards.

Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday.

Birthday postcards are not popular among collectors, so it is possible to find some nice antique cards for less than the price of a current greeting card. Sometimes I buy ones that I send to my sister. I have a few, like this one, that I keep for myself. I like the heavily embossed airbrushed ones. This one has velvety plush rose appliques which adds to its interest.

Thanksgiving Embroidered

Last weekend I attended an antiques show in Minneapolis. There I picked up a copy of the November 2006 issue of "Old Times," a free newspaper about antiques. This issue has a cover story on the three-panel "Churchmen of the New World" embroidery at the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.

The embroidery is 16.5 feet by 25 feet and took three years between 1971–1974 to complete. The center panel depicts the original Thanksgiving feast. The design is based on a watercolor by the English illustrator Pauline Baynes. Beneath the scene are the words "After God had carried us safe to New England and we had reared convenient places for God's worship one of the next things we looked for was to advance learning."

Today I was surprised to find that I have a postcard of this embroidery—I have no idea when I got it. The card has a copyright date of 1971 and shows dates of 1971 and 1972 on the picture (the newspaper picture shows a date of 1974 instead of 1972). A closeup detail is shown at left. Apparently the dogs were included because the illustrator liked dogs.

Candy Wrapper Design

I saw some of this candy with Thanksgiving postcard designs last week, but when I went back to buy it, all the store had left were Christmas designs. These came in a set of three. There were other sets with what appeared to be holiday postcard designs also. I picked these because they looked like some cards I have—probably from the same series by Ellen Clapsaddle.

The candy is from Hebert Confections of Shrewsbury, MA. I love dark chocolate and am glad it has become more common. This candy was OK, but I thought it was a little too sweet. If you are interested in reading candy reviews, there is an awesome candy blog at http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/

Below are the cards I have:

Voting Nov. 5th (Thanksgiving Day)

Another election card. I bought this because of the Thanksgiving reference, but I have it filed under "political."

I can't figure out which election it was for—probably either 1912 or 1940. Both the 1912 and 1940 elections were considered especially important, and both fell on November 5. The style of the card looks like it could be either.

Republican Elephant Comic Postcard

I don't intend to focus on politics, but here is a comic card from the 1950s that I think is amusing in light of the recent election. This card is a "Laff Gram" by Baxtone and was mailed in 1957.

Fifty Governors

I did vote in last week's election. The main reason I voted was to help pass a transportation amendment. I didn't like either of the major party candidates for governor. I still haven't decided which one is worse. I would have gladly voted for Jesse again. He wasn't perfect—just better than the alternatives.

Can you pick out former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura on this card?

Vote (1996)

This card is a little more than ten years late for last week's elections. It is a "Go Card" I bought at a postcard show some years ago.

I have not found free rack cards myself. I don't know whether they just aren't distributed in my area, or whether it is because I am not in the target audience of "twenty and thirty-somethings with high discretionary income." (The quote is from the Go Card Media Kit.) I enjoyed looking at their Media Kit which has examples of their cards and explains their advertising approach. A pdf version of their media kit can be downloaded at http://www.gocard.com/GoCARDMediaKit.pdf . The information and pictures are pretty much the same as what is on the website (http://www.gocard.com), but the pdf is easier to navigate. I couldn't figure out if Go Card is still in business. The website appears out of date.

I found an interesting postcard article when I was looking for info on rack cards: http://www.thegavel.net/2007.html . The article is by Pamela Apkarian-Russell who is known as the Halloween Queen and has written several books. The article talks about collecting both free rack cards and the early Art Nouveau and Deco Japanese cards—quite an unusual combination.

Let George Do It

Dutch kids were popular on early cards, and "Why Worry" was a theme that I have seen on several sets of cards. I no longer collect this type of card, but I happened to find this one amusing as political commentary when I was going through my cards today.

I tried to find the origin of the idiom "let George do it" but was unable to do so. If you know where the phrase originated, please post a comment. Obviously this phrase has been in use for a long time. Most Americans would know what it means, but how did it originate?

Why a blog?

I am trying out this blog as a way of showing some of the postcards from my collection that I find interesting in one way or another, but which do not fit in well with a longer article. I am planning to use this blog in conjunction with my postcardy.com website.