Penny Postcards? It's The Economy, Cupid

Article tools

E-mail

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Fark
- Google
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- Yahoo

Print
Reprints
Text size:

BACK WHEN penny postcards really cost a penny to mail, holiday cards were all the rage. These Valentine's Day postcards from the collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society were mailed to Long Islanders between 1908 and 1910.

``Postcard publishing and collecting was like the Hula Hoop between 1906 and the start of World War I,'' says Joel Streich of Commack, a postcard collector and dealer. ``All the holidays were very popular. Mainly, it was an easy way to talk to other people. It was cheap.''

Streich says that World War I ended the postcard boom because all of the high-quality cards were made in Germany. He adds that Valentine's Day cards as we know them today didn't become popular until the 1920s.