# Interesting bit of history regarding photo postcards **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 18, 2013, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-bit-of-history-regarding-photo-postcards/666527 "2013-08-18T01:48:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-bit-of-history-regarding-photo-postcards/666527/1 "2013-08-18T01:48:17Z")
Interesting bit of history regarding photo postcards - [Link here](http://delmardustpan.blogspot.com/) > [@](#): > > As a historical item, postcards in the United States are a relatively new item. They did not “take off” until 1898 when the Post office gave up their monopoly on post cards with the passing of the Private Mailing Card Act. This act allowed publishers and printers to produce “Private Mailing Cards” (postcards). The card had to have Private Mailing Card printed on it. By 1901 the publishers could just label the card Postcard. These cards could only be written on the side with the photo as the back was for the address. In 1907 the Post Office allowed citizens to write on both side of the cards by using the back side divided into two sections; one for the address and the other for the message. This period until World War One is considered the Golden Age of Postcards. About 1900, Real Photo postcards began to filter into use. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-bit-of-history-regarding-photo-postcards/666527/2 "2013-08-18T05:51:42Z")
The Wiki entry on **[postcards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcard)** is kind of complicated, with many caveats. The Biden postcard is slightly weird: how many people send pictures of their families along with recipes that could feed a small Indian family for a week to their constituents ? Mrs. Biden is rather attractive though. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-bit-of-history-regarding-photo-postcards/666527/3 "2013-08-18T07:00:04Z")
Apparently, collecting old postcards is a real thing. A year or so ago, when I first heard of Amazon Mechanical Turk, I got curious and poked around their site to see what they had going on. One collection of tasks I found was a postcard dealer who was apparently trying to catalog a batch of old cards. He posted images of the front and back sides of a great many old cards, many of them rather faded or otherwise barely legible. The task was to read and report on some of the facts printed on the cards. The cards typically had the publishers’ name (and often, the city) printed somewhere in tiny print, and the task was to try to find and read that, and report what it said. There was another task, again with many postcard images, to attempt to read the postmark information and report on the city and date of the postmark. Since those consisted of rubber stamps, they were often hard to read. ETA: I think you got paid something like $0.01 or maybe $0.02 for each card. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-bit-of-history-regarding-photo-postcards/666527/4 "2013-08-18T07:38:08Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Apparently, collecting old postcards is a real thing. I beg your pardon ? I am by no means a collector, but I’ve got dozens of old postcards, mostly cats, castles or Gaiety Girls ( Edwardian musical stars mostly ). You only have to go to a book fair, and there are a couple of stalls selling them, some quite highly priced. Serious collectors catalogue them. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-bit-of-history-regarding-photo-postcards/666527/5 "2013-08-18T09:14:37Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Apparently, collecting old postcards is a real thing. There are very few things that are not collected, with entire clubs for all of them found across the world.