Celluloid postcards

Four celluloid fantasy postcards. These are quite common, as objects made from celluloid were fashionable for a while. They seem to have been quite versatile. Here we see gold printing, collage, glitter, scalloped edges and the card in the bottom righthand corner looks to be very skillfully hand painted.

Celluloid is considered as the first plastic and was widely used as an ivory replacement. It was used in the film industry until replaced by acetate films in the 1950s. Table Tennis balls are made of celluloid!

Vincent goes to Summer Camp

The title of the card is; "Nothing will stop these boys from Pine Island Camp"

I imagine that Vincent wrote to his parents in the early 60s. He hasn’t put the date on his card. He’s enjoying himself a lot in the Island, despite not speaking English very well. He’s managing to get by and anyway there are plenty of sports to join in with.

Pine Island Camp in Belgrade Lakes, Maine is still running and Vincent would have been in the care of the family of the present director who was a child at the time. The camp for boys aged 9 to 15, is over 100 years old and has been run by the same family since the beginning.

This is one of my favourite parts of my job; finding out about a postcard. I found the Pine Island Camp website and really enjoyed my visit. My boys are grown up now; I think they would have enjoyed themselves there too.