OLD POSTCARDS , LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS

I've 10,000 postcards .... digitalised on a dvd :wink:

I've given away my own collection some years ago to a friend of our family: now it's archived as his collection :wink:

But I still own some postcards from about 1910 of the house, my mother (and my aunt) still lives in and where I spent some decades as well:



(That is the original version, we do have a couple of coloured ones, too.)


Well, that house was built by a granduncle, a surgeon ("Sanitätsrat").

We got all his last grammar school reports, all university reports (from Munich, Würzburg and Kiel [in Latin as well as in German]), his military certificates ...




... some with the signature of the "Inspetor of the Emperial Navy's Medical Section" but two with that of the emperor himself

Interesting this license to carry firearms: iissued in Paderborn, which was about 1806 part of the (French) Kingdom of Westphalia



I only can guess that my grandfather (mother's father) got from one of his relatives - no-one else is from around there.

We have additionally some hundreds of phtos dating back to mid-19th centuty.
Some dozen letters, starting about 1800 and including one from a relative, a Catholic priest, who founded three churches in Kansas.

Among the photos (stored somewhere) is one from a family reunion at about 1920:
besides my grandfather (father's site) is a second-cousin - the father of two old (96 &85) ladies, living downstairs.

We don't have many original documents (besides those above mentioned letters) here: some I gave to some museums and archives, others have always been there.

But we still have the christmas present my grandfather made his family in 1928 (I think it was): a radio - we have the postal certificate (bill) from the 23rd of December of that year.


And we have more than one hundred copies of all documents of my family, with number of the sources in the various archives, handwritten in about 1922 (sources dating back to 1287):

walter :
i'll have to hurry to get anything posted at all !
(is that the car you are driving these days - bet it would be worth a fortune if you had it).
i've got a lot of "stuff" sitting in the "recreation room" (basement ) and mrs h is imploring me to get some order down there !
some old stuff i brought over from germany over the years - and i wasn't shy aquiring more stuff in canadaa .
have started to put some things on imageshack .
hbg

in the 70's we visited the 'big apple' several times and on a couple of occasions had dinner at jack dempsey's restaurant .
dempsey would sit in a corner of the restaurant with his cronies , spin tales and sign postcards for the restaurant guests . i had quite a few of those cards , but gave them away save one - here it is :
(btw a full dinner started at $3.95 !).

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from my collection :
"first airmail flight letter from montreal to southampton , august 10 , 1939"

frontpage of 'newspaper' issued the brithish military commander in the district geesthacht(near hamburg) on june 9 , 1945 - about a month after the surrender of germany .
the backpage states that there is a curfew from 22:15 hs to 05:00 hs in effect until june 15 .
my mother-in-law had kept it in her credenza for many years and gave it to me on one of our visits to germany .
hbg



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I share the interest - to some extent from a history point of view, but more for my own esthetic pleasure. I'll scan some at some point, would enjoy it.

One of my enjoyments of old postcards is the delightful penmanship...

ossobuco :
i'm glad you dropped by .
indeed some of the writing is quite fancy , but i also have some mail written by sailors and farmers that are in a more ordinary script .
i think postcards were the e-mail of our grandparents . i'm amazed that the - sometimes - quite trivial stuff they wrote about , but that's what makes it interesting .
below is one of the oldest pieces i have ; it dates to 1839 . it's a 'handmade' envelope made out of a folded piece of paper - quite a commom practice .
it's the envelope of a letter written to the 'commissioner of crown lands" .
the notation states :
'st. jaques 24 oct 1839
joseph lennan enquires if L 5-0-0 stated to be paid by him to mr griffith on account of tom sherry's purchase in to. of rawdon will be credited to him by the government . '

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Well, see, I think that is simply gorgeous, Hamburger, no matter how prevalent or typical it might have been on that exact mailing day in that part of town.


I did frame several sequences of postcards anext each other for various reasons, but they are in storage.


Meantime, I'll be pleased to follow this thread.

even back in 1899 the taxman demanded his 'pound of flesh' - but it cost him 2 cents postage !
hbg

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I've some envelopes, too - send by "the Kaiser" and the chancellors of various universities in 19th centuries.

All very interesting.

More!

a postcard mailed from MOOSE JAW / SASKATCHEWAN july 1913 .
text is quite funny , i think .
the picture shows : "shooting prairie chickens" - of course they are really GROUSE .
hbg


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i sent this postcard in early april 1945 from babylon/bavaria to my mother in hamburg .
even though the war would be over in less than a month and rail-traffic had been disrupted , the postcard still reached my mother before the war ended .
hbg

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postcard sent from aboard the german ship s.s. cap finisterre of the hamburg-south-america line on january 14 , 1914 .
the cancellation stamp shows "seepost - seapost" , indicating that it was posted aboard ship in the german post-office .
the sailor was a relative of my grandfather(mother's side) .

the ship was in those days considered a "luxury" passsenger liner taking both immigrants - in the lower decks - and well-heeled travellers - on the upper decks - to south-america .
hbg


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german "notgeld" , similar to shinplasters .
it was isued by german cities and communities prior to the high inflation of 1923 . the central bank couldn't keep up with the demamd for coins - people would hoard them for their metal value - so cities started to issue "emergency money" that was only good within the city .
they were often very colourful and collectors would hold onto them - much to the delight of the issuers who wouldn't have to redeem them . hbg

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