Honeycomb paper postcards

These three honeycomb paper fold-out postcards are from the first decade of the 20th century. They were printed in Germany, which had the best quality printing in the world at that time (World War I and the resulting global economy changed that).

The color of this one is still beautifully bright since it's a folded card and has been stored away from sunlight for about a hundred years (!).

It's hard to read what is written on the back and front of the card but basically it's from a sister sending her brother a postcard with a bug on it because he is afraid of bugs. Ha ha! Kids are so different these days.

The dark purple gradated edging on the honeycomb is so delicate and pretty. I'm wondering if it could possibly have been hand painted or hand rolled on an ink pad because just the outer edges are colored.

This pretty swallow with the red epaulet has an added printed paper wing glued to the honeycomb tissue. It's very sweet. This one is fun to unfold and then fold again because it looks like the bird could sort of be flying. I'm surprised it's still intact. 

It's postmarked 1907. On the reverse side the sender wrote to tell the recipient to pull the string to open it. These cards are perforated on the edges so I imagine they were sealed on the outside edge in some way for mailing.

I'm now thinking these things must have been hand-colored  because how else to explain the red spot on just one side of the honeycomb?

Here is another bird (but flightless, so you can't play the pretend flying game by halfway closing the card and then opening it up again). Gold glitter outlines the legs and neck of the ostrich and also the sandy horizon line.

I just love these things. No editorial. No sending situation. Just some neat images. And lots of pointless delicate prettiness. I took a creative writing class in college once and the professor said that if our stories did not have a point (or a moral), they would be pointless. I know he was trying to make...um, a point....but if something has no point? I can't help to be drawn to it.

Postcards were incredibly popular at the beginning of the 20th century. On June 30, 1908, when the fiscal year ended for the U.S. Post Office, nearly 700 million postcards were mailed. The population at that time? About 90 million.  

1907-15 was considered the Golden Age of Postcards. People could not send enough of them and the quality and variety at that time was incredible. And the subject matter? Some of it was delightfully pointless. My kind of era. :-) 

Paper parasols

When you collect old things, you can't help but wonder what era they came from, why they came to be and what kind of people owned them.

I'm imagining these crepe paper parasols were name cards for a possible bridal shower from the 50s or earlier. There are ten of them. Seven of them have names. Three of them are blank.

The seven names are Terry, Jane, Marie, Sarah, Sue, Camille and...........

I was wondering why these little parasols had names but were still together after so many years. Did people forget to take them home after the party? Or worse, was the party called off at the last minute? What was the story? 

Well, I'm assuming that since Bobbie Phipps has her last name written on the parasol, there must have been another Bobbie invited to the party. So I'm going to further assume that there were seven forgetful people and the parasols were too cute to throw out after the forgetful ones went home. Bonus for me. Fifty or more years later, I have something very pretty to hang on my Christmas tree.

Somebody whom I suspect is not a snow hugger.

This card is so pretty but good grief, that skirt is so huge it would not fit in my garage. And look, she dropped one of her packages. How on earth is she going to pick it back up without falling over and then having to roll herself home since there's no way she could get herself upright again without a lot of assistance.

I know that squirrel is thinking, "Suh-weet. That package she dropped is SO mine."

1920s/1930s playing cards

The Oct/Nov 2008 issue of "Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion" has a feature on playing cards from the early 20th century. I have a small collection and always wondered why they were so darn tiny (they measure about 2 by 3.5 inches). Apparently little girls collected them and put them in scrapbooks...which also explains some of the imagery and/or themes. I always wondered why  adult women were so taken with nursery rhymes. :-) I got this group at an antique store in Independence, MO years ago. There were thousands of these things. All different. All wonderful. I just love the designs from that time.

I'm going to start a new category label because I collect a lot of ephemera, although Cathy J says I really should call it "ephemaria."