Tuesday, March 5, 2013

THE FORTHRIGHT GLORY OF "LARGE LETTER" POSTCARDS

I've been hanging around the insular world of postcard collectors a bit this past year, ever since inheriting my grandma's postcard collection. At first I started scanning her old postcards here on the blog, and posted some of her best ones here, here and here. Then I kinda got swept up into the mania, and started adding new postcards from the 20th century to her boxes. My focus has been on roadside americana, particularly motels of the 50s, 60s and 70s. To that end, I even started a blog called THE POSTCARD MOTEL, which houses scans from my collection. Check it out, and let me know if you've got any shoeboxes of these things lying around.

I recently became acquainted with "large letter" postcard collectors. These are just what you see here – large letters that greet you from a particular city. Usually the letters of the city's name includes pictures or drawings of some of its "top attractions". I'm kind of getting a bit hooked on these as well. They're cheesy, dated, totally of their time, and loaded with civic pride. Here are scans of a few from my burgeoning collection.