Postcards?

Nice handwriting is under-rated...

L

Nice handwriting seems to be a lost art. Remember all the Palmer Method drills -- oval, push-pulls, etc? We used to laugh at the way doctors scribbled on prescriptions. Now everyone writes that way. But when you are reading messages on old post cards you'll very rarely find one that is illegible.

I think it has to do with writing in a small space...

I think it has to do with the invention of the ball point pen.

Good point, roger -- or good pen point, if you will. Sorry, I couldn't resist! There was nothing like the old Esterbrook fountain pen.

I think it also has to do with the computer. The keyboard is faster than writing by hand.

I think it has to do with much less drill, if any, on penmanship in grammar school classrooms than there was, say, in 1950, or, in the case of one of my favorite postcards, 1906.

when i started school in germany (that was before ww II) we had to learn the SUETTERLIN script. you can find samples on this web-site : www.peter-doerling.de/Englisch/Sutterlin.htm in 1941 the german schools started teaching NORMAL SCHRIFT (pretty much like the regular latin script). so about halfway through mastering one script we had to switch, literally in midstream and it sure shows in my handwriting. actually i now prefer to write in a kind of printed script which is at least halfway decent. hbg

What's your favourite card in your collection?
or
What's the funniest card you've seen (message or front)?

More on this when I plug my new scanner in. Clearly (to me) not today..

I've been debating whether I should get a scanner, I'm having scanner envy, ossobuco, lol...

my favourite is a homemade one I received recently!

L

Thanks to Beth for the newest batch of cards received...which brings me to an ...if anyone wants to trade cards with anyone else, you could exchange addresses via pms or something (suggested to me awhile back, well versed in it now, lol)...So if you're looking to trade with people, mention it here...sound ok? (know I can't be the only person into this, lol)

If anyone else wants to trade with moi...either send me your address, or I'll PM you mine...

Open to all types, but I like writen meeseges on the back...part of the fun!

And I'm working on stuff that I've promised to send!

Happy trading!

L

Well, I'm here to say I had SO much fun picking out some postcards for Lorna when I last went to visit Setanta. I got some Niagara Falls and Buffalo, New York cards this time round. I've already got a couple of others (can't tell where from - it's a surprise) ready, and I'm going to keep her in mind as I wander around in my travels.

If anyone else would like some cards from Ontario or the bits of the U.S. between me and Mud Sock - send me a p.m. I'd love to do more of this!

Thank you Beth...and the cards were great, but you knew that.

<---me, glad I'm not the only one up for trading, lol

Once I get my home scanner working (for some reason, it isn't ON, g'damn it) I'll post some goodies someone might want. I got the work scanner working today, but for some reason the pics look better on the mac, dunno why. Anyway, I tend to buy old photo postcards of - to me - interesting landscape scenes in Europe or midwest US architecture, or various cards that look like good photography to me, hard as that is to define.

I'd love to post some of my favs, but I've framed them in groups and would have to take the frames apart...
Well, there is this wonderful one, wait, let me relook at it before I describe...

A photo of the Women's Rest Room at the Curtis Publishing Co. in Philadelphia, circa early 1900's or possibly a wee bit earlier. No it's not a photo of the stalls, but a big room with leather sofas and lots of women in of course clothes of the era lounging about. There was a women's lounge a little bit like that in Kirchoff Hall at UCLA when I first went there in 1960. Ah, but I won't trade that Philly one.

ossobuco -- My mother-om-law worked for the Curtis Publishing Co. in the early 1900s. You don't suppose one of those women in the picture........... Nah, I guess employees didn't use a restroom as palatial as the one you describe. Small world, though, isn't it?

It lists Ladies Home Journal
The Saturday Evening Post
and the Country Gentleman
under the title Curtis Publishing Company, all in tiny white letters at the top left of the photo. On second look, maybe the sofas aren't leather, but some sort of plush, very Victorian looking. I am quite ignorant about what happened when between, say, 1880 and 1910, re when women were hired to type, and so on.

My mother-in-law was a typist. And a good one. To the day she died she was the fastest typist I ever knew. She used to say that Curtis taught her how to type, but I think she must have known how before they would hire her.

This is really not an old postcard, but it's interesting none-the-less. Anybody want to guess where this is?

Hi c.i--Is it Prague?

And here is a site for fellow postcard addicts

L

Not Prague. However, I'm willing to give it away to the first person who gives the right answer.