Small pictures of places that changed
A postcard is a tiny time capsule. On the front is a street, a hotel, a lake or a train depot as it looked on one particular afternoon, often a place that has since been paved over, burned down or rebuilt beyond recognition. On the back is a penny stamp, a postmark and a few lines in pencil from someone telling their family the weather was fine and they would be home on Tuesday.
I buy, sort and sell those cards. My favorites are the ordinary ones that turned out to matter: the main street of a town of four hundred people, the depot that closed in 1950, the boarding house nobody remembers, the real photo card someone made of their own storefront. Big-city skylines and famous landmarks were printed by the million. The small places were often printed once, in a small run, for a local drugstore or general store, and very few of those cards survive.
This site is where I keep track of the cards I find. It's also where I share what I learn about dating them, reading their backs and telling a real photograph from a printed one.
What you will find here
Town views and main streets. Most of my cards show a real place: a business block, a courthouse square, a bridge, a mill, a school, a church, a park bandstand. I file every card by state and town so you can find the place you care about, whether that's where you grew up, where your grandparents lived, or a town you're researching.
Real photo postcards. Real photo postcards, which collectors shorten to RPPCs, are actual photographs printed on postcard-backed paper. Many were made by local photographers in small numbers, and some are the only surviving image of a building or a street. They are the heart of what I look for. If you want to learn how to spot one, I wrote a complete guide to real photo postcards.
Every era, from the 1900s to the mid-century chromes. Undivided backs from the first years of the century, divided backs from the golden age before the First World War, white borders from the 1920s, bright linens from the highway years, and glossy photochromes from the motels and diners of the 1950s and 60s. The ribbon above gives the short version, and my guide on how to date an old postcard gives the long one.
Topics people collect. Railroad depots and trains, hotels and resorts, diners and gas stations, lighthouses, county fairs, schools and colleges, holidays and greetings, ships and ferries, disasters and floods, and the "greetings from" large-letter cards that gave this site its look.
How I describe a card
When you buy an old postcard online, the only thing you can rely on is the description and the pictures. I hold myself to a few rules on every card I list.
- Front and back, every time. You see both sides, scanned flat, at a size you can actually read. The back tells you as much as the front: the publisher, the stamp, the postmark and the message.
- The date, and how I got it. "Old" is not a date. I date each card from the evidence on it, such as the back design, the stamp box on a real photo, a publisher's code or a postmark, and I say which clue the date comes from. When all I can give is a range, I give the range.
- Flaws in plain words. Corner wear, creases, album marks, toning, writing on the front, trimmed edges, pinholes. If it's there, it goes in the description, and it shows in the scan.
- Posted or unposted. Collectors care, so I always say whether a card went through the mail.
- Careful packing. Every card ships in a protective sleeve, inside a rigid holder, inside a stiff mailer. An old card should arrive exactly as it left.
Where to buy
Right now I sell through my eBay store, so checkout, payment and buyer protection are handled by a marketplace you already know and trust. Each card's page links straight to its listing. My where to buy page explains how my listings are organized: single premium cards, "choose your card" listings for a town or topic, and mixed lots for people who like the hunt.
Why the history matters to me
Every postcard I handle was bought by someone, carried somewhere, written on and mailed, or kept in an album for decades before it reached me. The messages on the back are often the best part. They give the crops, the weather, a new baby, a wartime worry, a complaint about the hotel food. When I list a card I transcribe the message where I can read it, because it is a small piece of someone's life, and it deserves to travel with the card.
Each card also gets a permanent page on this site, even after it sells. Over time those pages become a picture archive of American towns, sorted by place, that anyone can browse for free. If you're researching a building, a family business or a town's history, you're welcome to use them as a starting point.
For collectors and for everyone else
You don't need to be a collector to enjoy old postcards. Many of the people who buy them want one card: the hotel where their parents honeymooned, the school their grandmother attended, the street their family's store stood on. Others are framing a set for a kitchen wall, putting together a junk journal, or giving a hometown card as a gift to someone who moved away.
Serious collectors want different things: specific publishers, early real photos, scarce small towns, unusual topics, fine condition. I try to serve both. Descriptions give the facts a collector needs, the publisher, the code, the era, the stamp box and the condition, in plain English that anyone can follow.
What people look for most
Some kinds of cards come up again and again in the questions I get. If you're hunting for something specific, these are the places to start.
Hometown main streets. By far the most common search. People want the street they grew up on, or the business block where a grandparent kept a store. The best of these show storefront signs you can read, which can tie a card to a particular family or business. When I list a town view I name the street and any businesses I can make out, so a search for a store name can find it.
Railroad depots. Small-town depots were photographed and printed heavily in the early 1900s, when the railroad was the town's link to everything else. Many of those buildings are gone, and depot cards are collected by railroad fans, model railroaders and local historians alike. A depot with a train standing at the platform is a real prize.
Hotels, inns and resorts. Hotels printed their own cards and handed them to guests, so there are cards for grand resorts and for small-town hotels that had twenty rooms. Lake resorts, mountain houses and beach hotels from the early 1900s, and tourist courts and motels from the linen and chrome years, are all popular.
Schools and colleges. Old high schools, one-room schoolhouses and college campuses are collected by alumni and by people tracing a family member's education. School cards are often dated by the building itself: the old school that burned, the new one built in its place.
Roadside America. Diners, gas stations, tourist traps, roadside giants, and the bright linen cards of the 1930s and 40s that advertised every stop along the highway. These are the cards that inspired this site's look.
Disasters and events. Floods, fires, storms, train wrecks, parades and fairs were often photographed and sold as real photo postcards within days. They're documentary history, and some survive in only a handful of copies.
A word about reproductions
Popular old postcards are often reproduced, and some reproductions are sold as originals, by accident or otherwise. Everything I list as vintage is an original card. If I ever sell a reproduction, for example a printed set made from my own scans of public domain cards, it will be labeled as a reproduction in the title, in the description and on the card itself. If you have a question about whether a card is original, ask me, and I'll explain what I see on the card and why.
Questions I'm often asked
Do you sell reproductions? No. Every card I sell as vintage is an original.
Can you look for a card from a particular town? I list new cards regularly, filed by town and state. Saving an eBay search for your town is the best way to hear when one appears.
Are the scans of the actual card? Always. No stock photos, ever.
Start exploring
- Learn the eras and clues in how to date an old postcard.
- Find out what makes a real photo postcard special, and how to tell it from a printed card.
- See where to buy my cards and how my listings are organized.
- Read a little about me and why I spend so much time with a scanner and a magnifying glass.