03/04/2018

THE NOSTALGIA POSTCARD

COLLECTOR’S CLUB

Published by

IRIS Publishing Ltd

(Printed in England)

PHOTOGRAPH

My collection of Nostalgia Postcard’s

(All four boxes of them!)

I have wanted to mention these for some time now, but the first thing I need to do is discuss the ‘Elephant in the Room’, and that is the fact that these are NOT postcards. There you have it, I’ve said it, these are not true postcards, despite what they are called.

Right now, having got that out of the way, let’s talk about what these cards are. These are golden age postcard sized (deliberately printed in this size) information cards which have a picture on one side and information about the image on the reverse side.

This was something you had to sign up to. Once a member you received packs of these cards and a box to place them in. Once the collection got too big for a single box then another could be obtained, a third was probably required later on when the series became quite large (although I have four boxes there are a large number of doubles in my collection – I inherited two boxes from my Father-in-Law, who was a member and who introduced me to the cards, the fact that he had the collection meant that I never got around to joining up myself. I later, quite recently, picked up two boxes on eBay for the amazingly cheap price of just £15 – at that price I could not resist adding a load more to what I had).  

PHOTOGRAPH

Here you can see just how many of these I now have – at least two thirds of these cards are different.

The company also changed the designs of the boxes the cards went into

PHOTOGRAPH

CLOSE UP OF THE TITLE CARDS FROM TWO BOXES

PHOTOGRAPH

CLOSE UP OF THE TITLE CARDS FROM TWO BOXES

With some duplication of categories

THE NOSTALGIA POSTCARD

COLLECTOR’S CLUB

Main collector’s club card

CLUB BOOKLET

Front Cover

This booklet contains a rather simplistic history of the postcard, one with many technical errors but containing some details of interest, and it was designed for the basic collector of these cards.

INSIDE PAGE FROM BOOKLET

FILING SYSTEM DETAILS

As you can see from the main photographs above, the boxes came with section heading cards:

WAR, CITY LIFE, WORK, FAMILY LIFE, SEASIDE, FASHION, ENTERTAINMENT, COUNTRY LIFE, GLAMOUR, LEISIURE, SPORT, PERSONALITIES, TRANSPORT, NEWS and ART AND DESIGN.

This page shows the heading images and what they meant.

INSIDE PAGE FROM BOOKLET

FILING SYSTEM DETAILS

SECOND PAGE OF HEADING BOXES

TWO NOSTALGIA POSTCARD CLUB CARDS

Now, having got the fact these are not postcards out of the way, I now admit, that I really like these cards. I like these for the amazing range of images contained on these cards, many of which I had not seen before. The sources for some of these images are really-diverse and the subjects depicted numerous and varied. There is little point me trying to explain how good these are, or to describe them in full (as they have detailed text boxes of their own), so, my best bet here is to show you just a very small range of these cards and the reverse sides of the same cards…. So, here we go - I hope this initial selection (another will follow later) gives you some idea of what this collection offers:    

THE REVERSE SIDES OF THE ABOVE TWO NOSTALGIA (POST)CARDS

These cover the basic format for these cards (and you can see that despite the name, these are not postcard backs – the have some of the content, but the information blocks prevent these being true postcards. You will also a line of text bottom left which gives the SET number this image is from, each bundle of cards sent out to the club members had a Set No (here the top card is No 19 and the lower card No 25). All the cards in the bundle had the same set number so cards from various headings can be found with different numbers.

The following cards will all have the fronts depicted followed underneath by the reverse information sides.  

Every so often one of these cards features the image of a real postcard on it. The Ferris Wheel depicted here is a postcard issue (the 'I Love Lucy' Lucille Ball card further down is also a postcard issue). I normally prefer the images which are not postcard images, but this one is still a cracker.  

TOP

Ihave always collected the postcards of the Natural History Museum in London, ever since visiting as a child. So, this image fascinated me when I first saw it here in this collection. I have seen this elephant attraction and am delighted that this image was picked to appear here.

This is a good example of the unusual topics and images chosen for this collection

BOTTOM

The future Queen Elizabeth and her sister on a visit to London zoo. They are depicted with a young panda. Actual postcards can be found which depict another photograph taken at the same time as this one can be found (I have a copy in my collection somewhere) - but this specific photograph here I had not seen before 

This Television one, far left, often turns up on eBay (because TV is now such a popular theme) priced at £2 - £3.50.

As TV is one of my main collecting themes I have always liked this one - this pair to be honest.

One of the other things I like about this card series is the use of different front formats, i.e. images with boarders, and others without. It mixes up the images and makes the entire series more attractive, in my mind at least.  

There is a lot of war social history included in this card series

03/04/2018

GEORGE MICHAEL

1963 – 2016

By

John Swannell

1985 Archival digital print

Published by

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

I bought this one over a year ago. I have been back to the National Portrait Gallery shop several times since buying it and have not seen it there again. The NPM have a tradition of releasing distinctive and topical portraits (recently over the last few years this has included Nigel Farage [Brexit interest], the cast of the James Bond film ‘Spectre’, Felicity Jones [Star Wars: Rogue One] and David Bowie). Often these postcards are not around for long. I only saw the Nigel Farage one on sale for a single-one of my visits, this was the same for the James Bond cast (and this was a lovely set, one which will have some future value). Therefore, I always re-visit the gallery’s shop when I am in London and will continue to do so.

03/04/2018

FULL SERVICE

Design – REX FEATURES

Published by

ICON

(ICON ART)

Ref: Item No: 05395

A comic photographic postcard, not as common as the better-known cartoon drawing comic postcard form, but still often popular with the general buyers, the non-postcard collectors (people who occasionally buy the off card – they don’t consider themselves as collectors, but in my opinion, they are, they certainly help with keeping the postcard as a saleable product).

03/04/2018

RMS TITANIC MONTH

April is the anniversary month for the RMS Titanic leaving Southampton on her maiden voyage

and, the month that the ship hit the iceberg and sunk.

To commemorate this tragic event, I intend to place at least one TITANIC postcard on the webpage each day up until the anniversary of the sinking on the 15^th.

DAY THREE

TITANIC MEMORIAL

CITY HALL GARDENS, BELFAST

Published by

JOHN HINDE

(NORTHERN IRELAND Series)

Ref: 2NI-524

“The Titanic Memorial, Belfast shows two sea nymphs bearing up a drowned sailor. At its base is a list of those who perished. This memorial statue stands in the City Hall ground and is in memory of over 1500 people who lost their lives when the ship sank on the 14^th April 1912”

(Text from reverse side of Postcard)

Despite the minor, but annoying reference to the Titanic sinking on the 14^th, when it hit the iceberg on the 14^th just before midnight but, technically, sank on the 15^th, this is a cracking card, and one which shows one of the many memorial statues which are located both in Northern Ireland and England.