Prison

On the Ile de Ré, which is just across the bridge from here, there was a notorious prison. Do you remember the 1973 film Papillon with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman? In the film ‘Papillon’ was deported from the Ile de Ré. This card shows prisoners arriving around 1907, A little earlier than the story took place. There is still a prison on the Ile de Ré today.

Unfortunately, although interesting, the postcard is in a very poor state. The stamp has been torn from the front of the card and there are lots of creases.

Multi-babies!

Thanks to Alec I now know that these postcards are called multi-babies . The stamp is on the back of this one which was sent before 1904. Imagine finding all of these on your doorstep.

Dream chateau

For me this is a magical card. The way it’s faded over the last hundred years . Look at the reflections on the water.

A day at the races

In 1908 the babies were at the races.

Feeding time

This is the solution for every parent with an ever hungry baby to feed. I can’t help thinking they would have to have a very strong suck. The card is over 100 years old.

Château de Chillon

I mentioned to Peter the other day that I didn’t have any cards of Chillon castle. Well now I’ve come across two while sorting out the cards from last months auction – yes, I’m still working on them!

The coloured card is pre 1903 and I presume the flowery attachment would have been artificial edelweiss. The black and white card I would describe as semi-modern which would be after 1945 - I could be wrong.

Click on the cards to see them more clearly.

Little girl for sale

This isn't really in the baby series I wanted to show you but I couldn't resist this one. I wonder if they had many offers? I'm not sure whether is was sent in 1914 or 1924 the post mark isn't very clear.

Talking of babies, congratulations to Titania who is looking forward to being a Grandmother!

Zut! Je rentre

Amongst the cards we bought at the auction last weekend were quite a few funny 'baby'cards, this one really amuses me. Roughly translated it reads “Damn! I’m returning”, it’s from a series “Around the world in an egg”; I wonder if I’ll find some more? The card was used to order ‘funny stories’!

Aother town, another auction

At the weekend we went to another auction in a different town. It was nice to play the tourist and enjoy the weather at the same time. I’m beginning to recognise some of the people now, mainly dealers in coins, I’m glad to say! The auctioneers are beginning to know who we are too...

This is a card from one of the lots we bought. The artist was A Schlomka, I haven’t been able to find out more, except for another postcard online dated around 1911. I was touched by this one because as a mother of three children and having two sisters and a brother myself, I know that co-operation between siblings is rare.

Mystery car

Does anyone know what the make of this car is ? The back of the postcard is blank and the printing is in English and then French. There are no details of the publisher either. If you have any ideas please let me know.

Saint Catherine

I couldn’t understand why we’d collected so many Saint Catherine cards. They were addressed to girls with lots of different names, but not Catherine!. My favourite English student who is a retired history and geography teacher (history and geography are taught together in France) was able to explain the tradition. There are several St. Catherines on the French calendar, but one in particular in the autumn is the patron Saint of unmarried maidens. This is why lots of young girls used to send cards to each other on the celebrated day. Today, I think it would be hard to find a St Catherine card to send.

This one is a ‘semi modern’ card sent between friends.

Thank you Peter

This is a Swiss card for Peter at Worldman to thank him for writing about this blog in such a lovely way. I know that he comes from Montreux in Switzerland and this one is from Flüelen (Fluela). Now I think I know where the St. Bernard's dogs come from!

This card is semi modern and was posted in 1954. There is a franking on the back: Europäische Fernsehwochen television?

A walk in the woods

I thought that this weekend we could all go back in time to 1903 and take a walk through the woods. I think we’ll all manage to sit together on the bench where we can talk about all of our different countries. Which way should we go next left or right?

Charruyer Park

This is the park in La Rochelle, it hasn’t really changed at all. I’ve been looking through some postcards of the park and there often appear to be the same pair of swans. Today we have black swans too. The park was left to the town by Madame Charruyer about 150 years ago. The ‘lungs’ of La Rochelle, it stretches for a length of 2 kilometres through the middle of town.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

While I was clearing out an album we’d bought, I came across some photos. I bet these two were hot in their fur coats. This one has a postcard back. When I was small my mum had photos taken of my sister, brother and me every year by a ‘mobile’ photographer. A lot of those photos had postcard backs too, and it wasn’t so long ago!

I think the album had been kept by a young lady called Francine. Someone wrote to her at the end of the thirties saying that they hoped she would soon be a bride as she was now old enough and they had heard rumour of a young man. I found some cards from ‘the young man’ who was a soldier. They stopped shortly after the war started. There weren’t any more cards from young men after that. I hope that Francine found someone after the war.

La Rochelle Ladies

These ladies are typical of the women who worked along the shore at the beginning of the 20th century. There lives would have been very hard. The climate is cold, damp and very windy in winter and the summer sun is very hot. Throughout history the women of La Rochelle have been special, The first was Eleanor Of Aquitaine who owned la Rochelle, she married the King of France and later the King of England. I’m sure that the women of La Rochelle would have played a courageous part in the sieges where many Rochelais lost their lives. The women of La Rochelle were also amongst the most determined passengers to the Americas.

Later on, some of the ladies of La Rochelle were to become famous amongst sailors and ships crews from all over the world….

Auction success!

We went and bought a lot of new stock at an auction yesterday afternoon. There were other items, the most unusual being the sale of a binocular collection. There were posters too, this is where you can read about them. I always try to keep very still during an auction, I’m terrified of accidentally bidding for something I don’t want. Rob asked me to keep a running total of our bids so that we didn’t overspend, it went so fast I could hardly keep up!

This is just one card from a set that was in an album. We don’t usually bother much with fantasy cards, but I like these. It was printed in Berlin and sent in 1905 to wish someone a Happy New Year.

Mayday

For the month of May a Mayday card. In France the tradition is to give a bunch of Lily-of-the-Valley for luck on May 1st. This year the flowers came from Germany, as the hot weather had caused the French Lily-of-the-Valley to flower too early.

This card carried bad news, the sender’s house had been burgled and she was sleeping badly because of it.

The Sugar Loaf

This is a card from very early in the 20th century. I presume that the sugar loaf was a memorial of some sort. I’ve not been able to find out much about it. All I found was a later card for sale on eBay. There were no people in charming clothes and telegraph poles had been erected. My card is better!

I was pleased to see a comment from Alec Millard of Cherryland Postcards. He’s got a lovely postcard site with very different cards to mine. He’s chosen the same blogger background as me - a man of taste.

"I won't forget you"

I’m sorry I’ve been absent for such a long time. I‘ve been busy setting up our postcard business which means lots of paper work as well as preparing the cards for eBay (this is the door to our eBay). I’ve also had a lot more writing to do – strange how everything comes at the same time.

This card was sent in 1910 and was part of correspondence between friends made at someone’s wedding. An invitation to pass a Sunday together…