Monday, November 29, 2010

Nothing's finer than [fill in the blank] diner

Deltiology is the study and collection of postcards. Not that I had any idea what the word meant when I went to my first The Rhode Island Post Card Club (RIPCC) meeting. All I could see were hundreds of thousands of postcards ... and think that maybe, just maybe, the one card I was looking for was there, waiting for me to find it. Of course, while looking for that one card, I found a few others I liked along the way.

I now have a small collection of postcards. Topics include Large Letters (Greetings from:), Lucy The Elephant, Wigwam Villages, Motels, New England towns, various Roadside Attractions, Coney Island and of course Diners.

During the early 1900s, when stamps were just a penny, generic postcards were used by lunch cart owners to help advertise their diner. They would buy these sassy cards in bulk, stamp them with their diner's name and mail them out! There's no manufacturing info on the back of the card, but they're listed as part of Series No. 243. I know of 11 different cards and have six.
Lunch Wagon postcards
circa early 1900s
Does anyone have any further info?

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