С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ! -- Happy New Year

Countdown to the New Year with Ded Moroz, Snegurochka, and this 1979 Soviet New Year postcard.

A New Year Belle

These are two New Year Belle postcards made by Whitney. The Belle has a bell for a hat, a January 1 calendar for an apron, and good luck symbols on her skirt (horshoe on the first and swastika on the second).

Map: Arizona's National Monuments

New York World's Fair: Manhattan Shirt Co.

Manhattan Shirt Co. Exhibit at the World's Fair

THE Manhattan SHIRT CO.

creators of the Shirts of Today

welcome you to the World of Tomorrow

CELEBRATE THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1939-40 WORLD'S FAIRS
Look for more World's Fair Postcards on the Postcardy Blog on Fridays.
To view past World's Fair posts, click here or on the exposition label.

Christmas Toys for Boys & Girls

My favorite Christmas postcards are the ones with children, and these are especially nice ones. They were printed in Germany by P.F.B. and are part of series No. 6493. One was mailed in 1907 and the other in 1908.

Spying on Santa

CHRISTMAS IS

COMING

SANTA CLAUS TOO

MAY THEY BRING

A SEASON

OF JOY TO YOU

This Whitney Made Christmas postcard was mailed in 1916.

A Christmas Wish

MAY • YOU • JOIN SANTA CLAUS

IN HAVING • A • GOOD TIME THIS CHRISTMAS.

WITH BEST • WISHES.

This lovely Arts & Crafts style Christmas postcard was made by the Gibson Art Co. of Cincinnati.

Map: Greetings from Minnesota

Minnesota —area 84,682 sq. miles, of which 3,824 sq. miles is water; 10,000 lakes; 11th state in size; admitted to the Union in 1858. State Flower - Moccasin Flower. Capital - St. Paul.

A Child's Christmas -- It's Magic

Here is a set of five PHQ cards showing the 1987 British Christmas stamps issued on 17 November 1987.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Waiting for Father Christmas

Sleeping Child and Father Christmas in Sleigh

Child Reading

Child Playing a Flute and Snowman

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at

See it on a Postcard

A Christmas Gift of Furniture: December 1911

"Old Santa Claus never devised a better Xmas Gift than a good piece of furniture. . . Let furniture head your list or Xmas purchases and begin shopping at this store."

This is an advertising postcard with a December 1911 calendar. It was mailed from Hastings, Michigan in 1911 by Miller & Harris Furniture Co. The postcard is copyright 1911 by J. W. Gorman, Chi.

GGIE: Elephant Train

Elephant Trains touring Treasure Island pass the Colonnade of states and the Federal Buildings.

CELEBRATE THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1939-40 WORLD'S FAIRS
Look for more World's Fair Postcards on the Postcardy Blog on Fridays.
To view past World's Fair posts, click here or on the exposition label.

An Old-Fashioned Christmas Tree

This real photo postcard of a Christmas tree was mailed from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania in early January, a few weeks after Christmas. The year date is unreadable, but is probably 1908 or 1909 (divided backs were not allowed before 1907, and newer one-cent stamps were issued in December 1908).

The main part of the message on the back is about a sick Grandpa. A sentence referring to the Christmas tree is added sidewise "This is our Xmas tree it is not good of it."  The photo may not be ideal, or capture the true beauty of the tree, but it is good enough to show a lot of interesting details.

At the top of the photo, there is a garland near the ceiling. I don't see a tree topper--the top of the tree appears to be flattened where it touches the ceiling.

An enlargement of the center section of the tree shows a variety of Christmas ornaments and decorations.

On the right side, near the top, we can see one of the large angel decorations and the wallpaper pattern. The angel would be at least partly made up of printed paper "scraps." The wallpaper is a type of Victorian wallpaper pattern that was popular until about 1908 (source). There were separate coordinating rolls for wall, border, and ceiling.

A variety of presents are shown under the tree behind a fence. These include a wrapped package, books, and an elaborate game board (can anyone identify the game?).

Farther back, on the left side, there are some buildings and a gun.

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Map: Greetings from Long Island

Christmas Through the Eyes of a Child

Here is a set of five PHQ cards showing the 1981 British Christmas stamps issued on 18 November 1981. The stamps reproduced art by children of various ages that was entered in a Blue Peter competition. The competition received 74,000 entries (source).

Father Christmas

A Mosaic Collage of Christ

A Christmas Angel

The Journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem

The Three Kings Outside Bethlehem

image source

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

NYWF: DuPont Monastral Fast Blue

A NEW STAR IN Blues

MONASTRAL* Fast Blue represents the most outstanding development in the pigment field in many years. It possesses fine purity of tone and brilliancy of shade combined with exceptional fastness properties.

One of the principal uses of MONASTRAL  Blue is in printing inks as it faithfully reproduces tone values and is considered an excellent trichromatic blue for process printing. It also imparts fastness and brilliancy to paints, varnishes, enamels, lacquers, wall and coated papers, linolium, rubber, to mention only a few producet for which it may be used. This color is truly a symbol of modern chemical achievement.

E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO. (INC.)

NOTE: computer does not reproduce this color accurately.

Minneapolis "The Brightest Christmas City" Closeup

I posted this postcard previously, along with two others showing "The Brightest Christmas City" decorations of downtown Minneapolis, here. This postcard shows the view looking north on Nicollet Avenue from7th Street. Part of a Walgreen's drugstore sign is visible on the left. Donaldson's department store is in the right foreground, and signs for Standard Clothing Company and Powers Department Store can be seen farther up the street.

I thought it would be interesting to focus on the small figures of people on the left. Cropping and enlarging  just that section of the photo gives a good view of  the fashions and weather. I can almost feel what it would be like to be there walking along a festive, but cold and slippery, street with my hands in me pockets to keep them warm. It must have snowed recently because the type of snow that is clinging to the decorations doesn't last long.

I was hoping that I could get a better view of the license plates and store windows when I enlarged the photo, but the photo wasn't sharp enough for that. I was not able to date the photo, but I think it is probably late 1920s. Minneapolis had similar Christmas decorations for many years, and there are some photos of various years online. However, none of the photos I found online had decorations exactly like these.

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Map: Ithaca, New York

ITHACA

and

Nearby Points of Interest

In the Finger Lakes Region

of Central New York

Winter Fun Stamps

Here is a set of five PHQ cards showing the 1990 British Christmas stamps issued on 13 November 1990.

Building a Snowman, 17p

Fetching the Christmas Tree, 22p

Carol Singing, 26p

Tobogganing, 31p

Ice-skating, 37p

The subjects are Building a Snowman, Fetching the Christmas Tree, Carol Singing, Tobogganing (Sledding), and Ice Skating. Most of these subjects also appear on the 2014 British Christmas stamps shown here. In the 2014 series the sledding subject is replaced by "Posting Christmas Cards" (my favorite).

source

The title of this post "Winter Fun" comes from the USPS 2014 "Winter Fun" stamps which I bought in preference to the Christmas designs. These stamps were issued on October 23, 2014 as Forever® stamps in self-adhesive booklets of 20 (five of each design). This set also includes  ice skating and building a snowman as themes.

USPS described these as follows:

Winter days can be a wonderful time to appreciate the great outdoors with friends and loved ones. Drawing on nostalgic images of snowy childhoods, the Winter Fun stamps can be used not only to convey the joyful spirit of the holiday season and the new year, but also to send cheerful greetings for any occasion all winter long. Each stamp is sure to add a welcome splash of warmth to letters and cards during the year’s coldest months.

With four playful designs, Winter Fun celebrates some of the season’s most enjoyable activities: ice-skating, making snow angels, building snowmen, and bird-watching. The art for the ice-skaters design was painted with acrylic on plywood with a dry brush technique to give the illustration a textured, folk-art feel. The other three were all hand-sketched and then digitally manipulated.

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

GGIE: Pabco Display

  

THE PABCO DISPLAY in the Homes and Garden Building is the gathering place at the Golden Gate International Exposition for home owners and home lovers. It interprets in terms of human "Joy-of-living" values the utility of the building materials, floor coverings and paint products produced by the West's leading building materials manufacturer — the Paraffine Companies, Inc.

• • • Remember also to see Pabco's other major exhibit — the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, entirely protected and beautified by Pabco Paints.

CELEBRATE THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1939-40 WORLD'S FAIRS
Look for more World's Fair Postcards on the Postcardy Blog on Fridays.
To view past World's Fair posts, click here or on the exposition label.

A Woman and Her Dog

This real photo postcard of a woman and her dog has no information on the back. The woman must have loved her dog a lot to have this type of photo and postcard made. The dog looks like a Staffordshire Terrier, and he seems very well-behaved, sitting still and looking at the camera. (I don't know what is on the blurry right side of the photo, but it looks like a ghost dog to me!)

I always am intrigued, when looking at photos of people and their dogs, by how much people and their dogs resemble each other. Looking at the two faces here, I see similarities in the way the eyes look and how the shape of the dog's ears resembles the shape of the woman's hairstyle.

It seems like people tend to choose dogs that look like themselves in some way. There have been studies done on which features are most significant in matching photos of people and their dogs. A Japanese study quoted by several sources (eg. Vox and Huffington Post) found that the eyes were most significant in matching photos correctly.

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