I'd keep these!

If I had the choice, this is a pair of postcards that I would keep for myself. I love the way in which they've been coloured. Such a pretty little girl too.

Posted before 1900

Two postcards from Paris posted before 1900. There aren’t many postcards that have survived this long.

The Moulin Rouge opened in 1889, just 10 years before this postcard was sent. The second postcard of  Les Invalides was posted in 1898.

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.

The Old Curiosity Shop

Not my favourite Dickens’s novel; I felt like strangling the Grandfather throughout the book. However it does include one of the best descriptions of life in an industrial town written at the time.

Postcards of the shop are quite common, but this one is slightly different. Can you see the policeman standing to the left of the shop?

The shop is probably one of the oldest shops in Central London. It was made from wood from old ships and survived the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Café des Tribunaux

These two pictures were taken about 100 years apart. The Café des Tribunaux is in Dieppe in Normandy.

The up to date image comes from Google Earth.

Children paddling on the beach

In 1903 little children timidly enjoy the waves, the girls careful not to get their summer dresses wet. I wonder what happened to them as they grew up. They could have lived through two world wars.

A real gem!

We went to a auction in Bordeaux last Friday. It was a really good day. We managed to get some good lots and amongst the postcards was this one. There were two postcards made of the artist, Alfred Renaudin, at work on the banks of the river Moselle in the Lorraine region of France.

This is the rarer of the two. Alfred Renaudin (1866 – 1944) was a French landscape painter who was most active between the wars although this postcard was sent in 1905.

I looked on the internet to see if I could find the final painting, nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it’s in a private collection.

A stroll by the beach

Around 115 years ago Royan would have looked like this. Most of it was destroyed by the allies in WWII. I can’t help wondering if the ladies talking their walk would have been affected by the train passing so close just above them. It would have been very noisy, to say the least.

Happy Easter

Hot on the heels of St Valentine's day comes Easter.  Where does the time go?

The happy father

Even in the dark times of war there is a glimpse of hope and light. A happy soldier on leave holds his baby. The drawing on the postcard was made in 1917 by Luchard. I haven’t been able to find anything out about the artist.

Annette Poulard

Monsieur et Madame Poulard ran a Hotel at the Mont Saint Michel. Annette Poulard became famous for her omelets, so famous, that she put up a notice warning people to avoid copies of her recipe. Her omelets were eaten by thousands of people including King Léopold II of Belgium. Georges Clemenceau was a regular visitor.

Christmas is coming

A Christmas card sent over 100 years ago with a seaside theme. From a mother to her son.

Gateways

My father sometimes used to make wrought iron work, so I’ve always appreciated the hard work that goes into it. How many hours, I wonder, went into creating these two masterpieces?

The gateway at the prefecture in Tours can be seen today. It originally came from the Abbey at Beaumont-lès-Tours and was classed as a historical Monument in 1917. 

 This gateway at the Château des Perrais is still there too, although the Chateau is now a private Catholic school.

Lady in a green dress

I sent this postcard as a birthday card to someone. I love the way that the dress sweeps round. I wonder what colour it was in real life.

The Flower Market, Nice

As well as being a popular destination for the jet set (even Queen Victoria enjoyed Nice), Nice was famous for its flower market.

This card comes from the collection of an Artist; Antoine-François Cosyns. It seems that his friends sent him the most interesting postcards they could find on their travels., including this one.

Another postcard of the market

Embroiderer of headdresses

I think that this is a peaceful postcard. She’s working quietly away at a headdress. Notice the lace on her sleeves and her own bonnet.

Can you hear the birds singing?

A postcard of a farm in Normandie. It looks an enchanted place. The card was sent to a Belgian artist, AF Cosyns, who worked in France from 1911 to 1950.

He received many interesting postcards from friends on their travels.

An American Sewing Machine

Every young girl's dream...

The New Home sewing machine was from America, but these postcards are both French. Here is the history of the company with lovely old illustrations, I imagine that some of them were postcards too..

Лили Дамита

Lili Damita 

At first I assumed that this was a postcard of a Russian Actress. I sent a scan off to J-M, my son-in-law, for a translation. Not at all a Russian actress, she was born in France in 1904!

After winning a beauty contest and appearing in several European films, she was invited to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn in 1928. She married an unknown actor who later became very well known, Errol Flyn. They divorced in 1942.

Lili died in 1994 before her 90th birthday of Alzheimer’s disease.