Random Acts of Living


Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Vintage Postcards from 1908 - 1940s page 9

19?? - 1945


It's possible that the one below dates from the early 1900s. I can't make out the postmark date and don't have a clue what it says.



The one below has an interesting wartime stamp and post mark.
Still more to come!

9 comments:

Anita said...

I really don't think I've ever seen one with a grave on it... lol

those are awesome... Love the War Bonds post mark...
And the roses!

Moonshadow said...

There were quite a few grave postcards. I had one I'll have to see if I can locate. I don't remember whose grave it was or what exactly was the reason but if you visited the grave you were to lay a small rock on it and the picture showed this huge pile of rocks.

Alice said...

Isn't that first one different, with a ship decorating a Christmas greeting. It doesn't seem to fit very well.

Moonshadow said...

I thought that one was a little odd myself. I suppose if you lived on the coast you might decorate lots of things with ocean themes. Not a clue on this one really.

Momo Fali said...

Could ANYONE read the one dated February 25th? At first I thought it was a foreign language, but now I think it's just bad handwriting!

Moonshadow said...

LOL! Momo, your first impression was correct. It is a foreign language, German in gothic script. If you look back through my other postcards you'll see quite a few others that are German in gothic script, especially the earlier ones. My Gr-great grandparents came to the US in 1874. My grandparents spoke German and my dad spoke it when he was young but has forgotten most of it. The only German I know, I learned in H.S.

Anita said...

That first one reminded me of that song "I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas day in the morning" except there's only 1 ship! lol

WichitaKsDailyPhoto said...

I had fun trying to decipher the post card of Feb 25th, but had no luck. I think it starts out with Dear Sir, and is sending a word of congratulations or "best wishes" in regards to a Trina - maybe she got married or had a baby.

And, about the stamp - this was on Wikipedia:
The Washington-Franklin era
1908 saw the beginning of the long-running Washington-Franklin series of stamps. Although there were just two basic designs, a profile of Washington and one of Franklin, the Post Office was going through a period of experimentation. The result was several variations on the design, a half-dozen different perforations, three kinds of watermarking, three printing methods, and large numbers of values, all adding to several hundred distinct types identified by collectors. Some are quite rare, but many are extremely common; this was the era of the postcard craze, and almost every antique shop in the U.S. will have some postcards with green 1¢ or 2¢ stamps from this series.

This era started to see the regular issue of individual commemorative stamps instead of the large sets of the 1890s, at a rate of about one or two stamps each year.

Interesting site here, too about old handwriting styles, and letters that can be mistaken for other letters.

http://genealogy.about.com/library/tips/bl_old_script.htm

Thanks for all your visits to Wichita!

Moonshadow said...

Wendy - Thanks for all the interesting information about the the stamps. I also posted the translation chart you send.

My pleasure visiting your Wichita photo blog. You post pictures of places I've been and places I've meant to visit. : )