Old-Postcards.com gives you a preview of some of the most popular vintage and antique postcard genres available to collectors - Artist Signed, Beautiful Ladies, Children, Large Letter Greetings, Popular Animals - Birds, Cats, Dogs, Bears, Horses - and Trains and Railroads.
Vintage and antique postcards are often intertwined by their genres. The gorgeous artist signed postcards of the Victorian and Edwardian eras often featured beautiful women, angelic pink cheeked children and glamorous ladies. More often than not, these antique and vintage postcards were pure works of art. And, the topics of genteel beautiful women, cherubic children and glamour models were often used to promote products. These types of antique and vintage postcards were called trade cards. As we all know people are much more likely to purchase a product based on the presentation.
Lefevre Utile LU Biscuits Collection 1904 artist signed by Alphonse Mucha advertising postcard for LU Biscuits with his famous Art Nouveau portrait of actress Sarah Bernhardt from Princesse Lointaine. Unused vintage postcard in excellent condition.
Lefevre Utile LU Biscuits Collection advertising postcard for LU Biscuits with a portrait of a boy and girl sharing the biscuits. Unused vintage postcard in excellent condition.
Frank Haviland Artist Signed Beautiful woman in low cut sleepware. Unused Raphael Tuck & Sons "Elite" Series 3013 vintage postcard in excellent condition.
Jean Tam artist signed glamour postcard of woman model eating the fruit props. Unused French vintage postcard Series 67, #1, "Le Modele espiegle" in excellent condition.
Artist unsigned Circa 1902 German chromo lithograph of a beautiful child with a stunning blue background full of stars. Unused vintage postcard in excellent condition.
Nursery Rhyme Art Deco Circa 1908 Little Tommy Tucker with his pilgrim hat sings for his supper with the rhyme printed below. Unused A Vivian Mansell & Co. vintage postcard series #1067 in very good condition with average wear.
The large letter greeting types of antique and vintage postcards featured "Greetings From ...." specific cities around the United States. Also featured in large letter greeting postcards are popular landmarks as well, such as amusement parks, national parks, and military schools and academies such as West Point on the Hudson in New York and Annapolis, the Naval Academy, in Maryland. Often artistically contained in the large letters were smaller pictures of people, places, food, etc. that were typical of the area. In the late 19th century and early 20th century cameras were not available to the regular population. Therefore when you went vacationing or visiting, the Large Letter greeting postcard was a neat way to show the folks back home what you were seeing and experiencing.
Coney Island New York NY 1906 Large Letter Greetings from Coney Island complete with Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln and George Washington in the letter "G", women in the rest of the letters in "Greetings" and actual Coney Island scenes in the words "Coney Island". Unused Illustrated Post Card Co. vintage postcard with glitter in very good condition. The color streaks are the light reflecting off the glitter.
Annapolis Maryland MD 1940s Large Letter Greetings from Annapolis Maryland, home of the U S. Naval Academy. Unused Dexter Press vintage linen postcard in excellent condition.
Vintage and antique postcards often portrayed animals in various ways. Artist signed postcards frequently were pure works of art, displaying birds, cats, dogs and more animals in an either realistic or dreamlike way, beautiful and today, certainly worthy of framing. Many of these animal postcards were also used for advertising trade cards for salesmen who were visiting homes across the United States. Again, presentation is everything and the housewife was much more inclined to buy the product if the presentation was wonderful. Hence, we have many beautiful animal themed vintage and antique trade cards such as the Genesse Twelve Horse Ale postcard below. Other animal themed postcards tend to portray the animals in a fantasy world or anthropomorphic, where animals were dressed up as people and performed human actions such as sports, shopping etc. A good example of this are the Roosevelt Bears below.
Herta Wasserkampf Artist Signed Bird sitting of a flower branch. Unused Kork - Kunstlerkarte 4" x 6" vintage postcard #2041 with usual rough cut in very good condition with average wear.
Artist Signed Erna Maison Bonne Fete or happy birthday Girl watching her dog sit up. Unused vintage postcard #4422 in excellent condition and printed in Belgium.
Cats Circa 1908 Two cats picking petals from a daisy playing "He loves me, he loves me not.". Unused Raphael Tuck & Sons vintage postcard from the Humorous Cats series 122 in very good condition with average wear.
Roosevelt Bears celebrating the 4th of July on this 1907 Third Series postcard #18.. Unused vintage postcard in very good condition with finish damage along the right edge.
Advertisement 1934 view of the twelve Belgian Roan horses pulling the wagon full of Genesee Twelve Horse Ale in Rochester New York. Used Curteich vintage postcard in very good condition.
Finally, in the post Civil War era, Victorian and Edwardian eras, the preferred mode of traveling across the country for business, pleasure, or a little bit of both were trains. Cars back then could only take you so far, and, if you were traveling from New York to Boston, or Philadelphia to Sacramento, the train was the way to go. Antique and vintage postcards featuring the old time train depots, rail yards, railroads, and of course the beautiful old trains themselves were again, a great way to show the folks back home the sites you were seeing along the way. Today, our fascination with "old stuff" is stronger than ever. Antique and vintage train and railroad postcards are hugely popular among collectors.
Liberal Missouri MO Circa 1908 view of a train arriving at the Missouri Pacific Railroad Depot. Unused vintage postcard in excellent condition.
Southern Pacific Railroad Motor Car circa 1908 which was a combination of the engine and passenger car into one. Unused Edward H. Mitchell vintage postcard #1737 in good condition with lower left corner damage.