Chicks Sing Easter Greetings

I didn't want to let Easter go by without posting an Easter postcard, but I have so many nice ones that I couldn't make up my mind which one to post. This one finally jumped out at me, both literally and figuratively. The background has an embossed cloth texture which makes the figures really stand out. There is a 3-D effect which is enhanced by the stem of the pussy willow that is placed over the border at the bottom right.

Happy Easter to You
Happy Easter to You
Happy Easter Dear Friends
Happy Easter to You.

Giant Coffee Pots

One of my favorite postcard collecting topics is ""Big Things" or "Giant Roadside Attractions." Here are some postcards showing big and VERY BIG coffee pots. The first postcard above is circa 1959 and shows The Big Coffee Pot in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that was already more than 100 years old. It was originally erected as the sign of a tinsmith and is now a city landmark. It is 7 feet 3 inches tall with a volume of 740 gallons.

Several towns have water towers decorated to look like coffee pots. The one on the next postcard is in Stanton, Iowa and was erected in 1971. This 120-ft. "Swedish-style" pot is painted with decorative hearts and flowers. The pot is 35-ft. high and is on top of a 90 ft. tower. It holds 40,000 gallons. Stanton is also the home of similarly decorated coffee cup water tower holding 150,000 gallons that was erected in 2000.

The next postcard shows an information booth on Washington Island, Door County, Wisconsin.  This giant coffee pot was made of galvanized steel in 1941 and is painted with a Norwegian Rosemaling design. It has a door and two windows. It was originally used as a store and then as a tourist information booth, but now is just a local landmark.

 

The next two images are modern postcards (published about 20-30 years ago). The yellow (colorized and undated) building is now painted differently and known as Bob's Java Jive. There is a Lite Beer sign visible in one of the windows. This building is in Tacoma, Washington and was built in 1927 as the Coffee Pot Restaurant. (postcard photograph by Roger Lantaff, Island Photo-Graphics)

The last postcard is titled EAT and is a 1939 photograph by Frank Navara (postcard by Fotofolio). This building is no longer standing. It was the Coffee Pot Restaurant in Bremen, Indiana. The building was a wooden silo that was turned into the 18-foot-diameter restaurant in 1932. (information source quoted by several sites from Bremen and North Central Indiana by Acadia Publishing, 2001).

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Williamsburg, Virginia (& Washington, D. C.) 1961

I especially like postcards that include someone with a camera in the picture. Here I have two 1960s postcards from Colonial Williamsburg, which is a restoration and re-creation of an 18th-century colonial American city. Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia during the colonial era.

These postcards are of the Public Gaol which is described on the back is as follows:

Pirates, captured in 1718, were imprisoned in Williamsburg's Public Gaol before being hanged. Today, the pillory and stocks outside the ancient gaol are favorite setting for camera enthusiasts.

I can attest to the popularity of this attraction. My family visited there during Spring Break in 1961, and I have photos that I took of my parents and sisters there. The pillory and stocks are still popular with both adults and children.

 

That same trip included a stop in Washington, D. C. The driving distance between Williamburg and Washington is about 150 miles.

source: http://visitwilliamsburg.com/maps--local-info/getting-here/index.aspx

The cherry blossoms were blooming when we were in Washington. I have photos I took of the cherry blossoms (with a sister) and the Washington Monument, though unfortunately not together.

The Washington Monument is the most prominent structure in Washington, D.C.  The 555-foot, 5-1/8" marble obelisk honors the nation's founding father George Washington, who led the Continental Army to victory, and then became the nation's first president under the Constitution.

When I suggested the photo for this week's prompt, I had no idea whether it would be used or when. I chose it because I like the Library of Congress archive, and I was attracted to the set on Flickr of "Photographer in the Picture." It is just a coincidence that the image I suggested is appearing on Sepia Saturday during Spring Break and Cherry Blossom Festival time (March 20 - April 14, 2013). I actually had a harder time deciding on a post topic this week than I usually do.

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United Nations

The United Nations was established in order to maintain international peace and promote cooperation in solving international economic, social, and humanitarian problems. Representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco in 1945 to draw up the United Nations Charter. The United Nations officially came into existence on October 24, 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the Security Council—France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States—and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.

The first meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council, took place in London beginning in January 1946. Before moving to the new United Nations Headquarters building  located on international territory in New York City in 1953, the organization was based at the Sperry Gyroscope Corporation's facility in Lake Success, New York from 1946 to 1952,

The United Nations' system is based on five principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice. The first four organs are at  the United Nations headquarters in New York. (The International Court of Justice is located in The Hague).

The views on my postcards are 50+ years old. The postcard above has a view of the United Nations Headquarters in New York from across the East River.

 

The postcard of the mural by Jose Vela Zanetti ''Mankind's Struggle for a Lasting Peace'' at the United Nations headquarters is composed of three panels which fold for mailing. It is the width of 3 postcards (16-1/2") when open.  The United Nations website describes it as follows:

The huge mural - 20 yards long and nearly four yards high - depicts mankind’s struggle for a lasting peace, beginning with the destruction of a family and ending with the resurrection, showing a bright-eyed child looking toward a generation of peace. Concentration camps, bombings and all the agony of modern war are symbolized in the painting, in the centre of which a gigantic four-armed figure is implanting the emblem of the United Nations, as mankind reconstructs a war-torn world.

This seemed like a good subject for trying out the MapLib widget as described by Mister Mike in last week's Sepia Saturday post: http://temposenzatempo.blogspot.com/2013/03/adolphe-dumont-and-chicago-philharmonic.html .

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Delta Queen Trip

The Delta Queen is a sternwheel steamboat that is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. The Delta Queen and her sister ship Delta King began service in the 1920s on Califorinia Rivers. During World War II, the ships were used by the United States Navy for duty in San Francisco Bay. In 1946, the Delta Queen was sold and towed to New Orleans. She began cruising the Mississippi River and its tributaries on a regular schedule, with cruises ranging from New Orleans to Memphis to St. Louis to St. Paul to Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and many more ports.

My mother took a trip on the Delta Queen in October, 1965 and sent me twelve postcards from her trip. These are some of the postcards she sent me.

My mother took another (and different) Delta Queen trip in 1968. I don't have any postcards from that trip, but I was able to see the ship and go aboard when it docked in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Delta Queen continued its river trips for many more years. Although its continued operation was threatened by the Safety at Sea Law of 1966 that prohibited operating vessels with wooden superstructures in overnight passenger service, the Delta Queen was given a special Congressional exemption from the law in 1970. The Delta Queen's exemption eventually expired and the Delta Queen ceased operations at the end of the 2008 season. Since June 2009, the Delta Queen has been docked in Chattanooga, Tennessee and has been converted into a hotel.

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United States Letter-denominated Stamps

Above is a maximum card ©1985 The Maximum Card Collection, a division of Unicover Corporation. The stamp on the card is the D sheet stamp issued on February 1, 1985. The following information is printed on the back of the card:

Like the pioneer and homesteader, the stagecoach played a vital role in the early development of the American West. Early on, letters and messages were carried by horse and rider, but their reliability was marginal at best. As the amount of mail being sent increased, its sheer bulk and weight made the horse and rider impractical. Thus, the stagecoach became the primary mode of transporting the mail. The earliest coaches covered a set distance each day in "stages" over a predetermined route and thus became known as stagecoaches. By the 1830s stagecoaches were carrying the mail over seventeen million miles of roads annually and were instrumental in helping settle new territories. This Maximum Card features a non-denominated D series sheet stamp issued in anticipation of the Postal Rate Change of 1985. At the time the D stamps were to be printed for the 1985 postal increase, the amount of the rate change was uncertain. Consequently, for only the fourth time in U.S. history, the Postal Service issued non-denominated stamps.

 Actually, the D stamp was the fourth letter-denominated stamp, but not the fourth non-denominated stamp. There also were some non-denominated Christmas stamps before D letter-denominated stamp. The letter-denominated stamps were issued in preparation for postage rate increases. After reaching the letter "H", this practice was replaced by simply indicating the class of postage (e.g., first class) for which the stamp was intended. The USPS has a Quick Service Guide online showing non-denominated stamps here.

Here is a table with the design, value and issue date of the letter-denominated stamps:

Letter	Design	Value	Issue Date
A	Orange Eagle	15 cents	May 22, 1978
B	Purple Eagle	18 cents	March 15, 1981
C	Brown Eagle	20 cents	October 11, 1981
D	Green Eagle	22 cents	February 1, 1985
E	Earth	25 cents	March 22, 1988
F	Flower	29 cents	January 22, 1991
F	Flag	29 cents	January 22, 1991
G	Old Glory (Flag)	32 cents	December 13, 1994
H	Hat	33 cents	November 19, 1998

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog