As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, October, 2003

Addicted deltiologists spend small fortunes and haunt dusty, dimly lit attics to feed their curious habit. They compete with other deltiologists for rare specimens and lock their most valuable finds in safety deposit boxes. The deltiology bug may even have bitten you—without your even knowing it.

Derived from the Greek term “small writing tablet,” deltiology refers to collecting postcards, a pastime that is becoming increasingly sophisticated and specialized. Dozens of web sites cater to those who would buy, sell, or trade vintage or historic postcards. Those of us who haunt antique stores rarely pass up a chance to thumb through well-worn stacks of them in hopes of discovering something rare or personally evocative.

For more than a hundred years, the impulse to send greetings in the form of a picture postcard to the folks back home has been an irresistible one. What better way to brag a bit to stay-at-home friends and family! Some of the most prized postcards are those produced before the turn of the twentieth century. In Europe, artists, some of whom became quite famous, designed cards, some embossed and embellished with metallic colors. German printers, who had perfected the techniques of printing elaborate labels for candy and cigar boxes, produced many beautiful and creative postal cards as well.

Resort hotels soon realized the promotional potential and ordered postcards with idealized portraits of their buildings and grounds, all frozen in time with robin’s-egg-blue sky fading gently to peach, the trees and lawns forever bright green. The postcard printer or photographer obligingly and periodically updated these views, inserting figures with more current fashions or newer model automobiles. In contrast to these “glamour shots” were the many photographic cards that captured a more realistic view.

Guests were happy to pay for these advertisements and endorse them with a message on the reverse side: “Having a swell time…”, “The food is great here…” or “Mama says this is the best season yet…” Furthermore, the vacationers paid the postage to mail them to an entire network of potential new guests. Commercially produced cards first appeared in the United States in the 1890s, when postage cost just one cent, thus the term “penny postcards.”

Those with the earliest postmarks are often the most prized, and the most expensive. In some cases, it is difficult to tell which side is most fascinating, the one with the colorful image, or the other side with the canceled stamp, complete with post office name and date, a terse message, and the full name and address of the recipient. If the recipient was the saving kind, the card might be added to an album or packed carefully way in an old hat box, to be discovered years later as a treasured time capsule.

Civic boosters soon saw the value of placing images of their town’s attractions on postcards. Who could resist buying a view of Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building or St. Augustine’s quaint old buildings to mail back home? Producers of postcards quickly printed sets for all seasons and for every kind of historic landmark and natural wonder. In every small town and big city handy metal display racks soon appeared so that postcards were at the very fingertips of tourists in hotel lobbies, train stations, and souvenir shops.

Travelers snapped up the inexpensive cards with the pretty pictures and dashed off their abbreviated messages, absolved from having to write long letters describing the scenery and local attractions: “You would love this view…”, “My room is the one with the X…” or “Papa caught a big fish in this lake….”

Postcard producers, such as the Curt Teich Company of Chicago, the world’s largest, printed a small code number on each card so that they could be more easily tracked—and retouched from time to