#antique postcards

[thingsfromthedirt]

Language of Flowers postcards (ca. 1909/10)

Rose: love

Clover: be mine

Sweet Pea: wish you joy

Pansy: think of me

Wild Rose: pleasure after pain

Wheat: plenty

White Heather: good luck

Snowdrop: hope

Lily: peace

Forget-Me-Not: forget-me-not

[leavesandpumpkinspices]

Vintage Halloween Postcards ✨🎃✨

[brianfrench1995]

1966 Seaboard Air Line Railway Silver Meteor Postcard

[cebra-gris]

Postcards originated in 1860 as a form of propaganda or advertising. When they incorporated photographs, they began to promote tourist attractions and were collected. Cheap and accessible, they allowed everyone to dream of idyllic landscapes. It's natural that they became erotic around 1880. Erotic photography predates this, but the daguerreotype only produced one print per exposure.

Las tarjetas postales nacen en 1860 destinadas a propaganda o publicidad. Cuando tuvieron fotos comenzaron a promocionar atracciones turísticas y a ser coleccionadas. Baratas y accesibles, permitían a todos soñar con sus paisajes paradisíacos. Es natural que fuesen eróticas a partir 1880. La fotografía erótica es anterior pero el daguerrotipo, solo producía una copia por exposición.

These postcards were sold where regular postcards were sold, and their low price and ease of viewing in private made them very popular. Their images ranged from women barely showing any skin to extremely explicit photos of sexual acts; they focused on luxurious lingerie and/or recycled old clichés, reinterpreting famous artistic images (parody and pornography have always been a good match). They displayed bodies of all kinds, both those deemed non-normative by the standards of the time and grotesque ones, like circus acts. Obscene and misogynistic jokes abounded, in the irreverent style of French Revolutionary pornography, which attacked the powerful and the Church.

Estas postales se vendían donde se encontraban las normales y su bajo precio y lo cómodo para la contemplación en la intimidad las hicieron muy populares. Sus imágenes iban desde mujeres que apenas mostraban algo de piel hasta fotos extremadamente explícitas de actos sexuales, se centraban en lencería lujosa y/o reciclaban viejos clichés reinterpretando imágenes artísticas famosas (la parodia y el porno siempre se han llevado bien). Mostraban cuerpos de todo tipo, tanto no normativos para el gusto de época como grotescos a modo atracción circense. Abundaban los chistes obscenos y misóginos, al modo irreverente de la pornografía durante la revolución francesa que atacaba a los poderosos y la iglesia.

The cards with nude models reflected the aesthetic tastes of the moment, and the most daring ones led to the classification of sexual practices of the time. They were useful to sexologists and psychoanalysts for documenting sexual fetishes, and pornographers adopted this terminology, which was created to better target their products to a diversifying and expanding market. Attention to detail in set design and costumes didn't disappear from the industry, even now, but it was here that it began to lose importance, ceasing to be the main mainstream element in the face of a new fetishistic order where sexual practices and framing were what classified them and were considered when conceiving them as a marketable product.

Las tarjetas con modelos desnudas reflejaban el gusto estético del momento y las más audaces dieron lugar a la clasificación de las prácticas sexuales de la época. Fueron útiles a sexólogos y psicoanalistas para documentar las filias sexuales, y los pornógrafos adoptaron dicha terminología que se creaba para orientar mejor sus productos a un mercado que se diversificaba y ampliaba. El cuidado en escenografía y disfraces no desapareció ni ahora en la industria, pero aquí fue cuando fue perdiendo importancia dejando de ser el mainstream principal ante un nuevo orden fetichista donde las prácticas sexuales y tipo el encuadre eran lo que las clasificaba y se tenía en mente al concebirlas como producto vendible.

Selected, resumed and translated to english by me

pic via @photoandwomen

[vintagebarvinok]

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4516038765/imperial-russia-art-postcard-charity?sr_prefetch=1&pf_from=shop_home&ref=shop_home_active_4&logging_key=95358af79890323e94b381f265d123cb4dab220a%3A4516038765

[memorycavities]

entrance to the big room

carlsbad caverns national park

new mexico

ellis-sawyer color photo

[colgreen31]

A 1911 Request: Rocks, Rivers, and Raincoats

Check out this beautiful monochrome postcard of Hardcastle Crags, Hebden Bridge, printed by Valentine’s Series.

Sent on September 20th, 1911, the sender (Amy) writes to Miss Balderstone, a dressmaker in Yattendon. The urgency? A weekend trip!

“Dear Dot, Could you let me have my coat well next Friday? I am going away for a weekend. Trusting you are better. With much love, your affect. Amy.”

There is something so deeply human about sending a postcard of a massive rock formation just to ask if your tailoring will be finished in time for your holiday.

Read more on the blog: Postcard Postscripts: A Glimpse into Edwardian Yorkshire: A 1911 Postcard from Hardcastle Crags

[pumpkinpatchdarling]

Seems like it's a great time of the year to share some of my favorite card designs ever! These Christmas & New Year postcards were illustrated by Xavier Sager and published by Raphael Tuck & Sons. ♡