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Welcome to Vintage American featuring beautiful, historic vintage postcards showing scenes of Victorian towns, National Forests, and people from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Each of these postcards is available for reprint from a restored image.
While traveling across America, I developed a hobby collecting these vintage postcards. The kids were young and we were on a budget, so I did not spend money on expensive tourist items. As we traveled most of the 50 states, I would duck into antique stores to find my souvenir from the trip - my treasured antique postcard of the town and surrounding countryside with the lovely vintage colors.
I particularly chose postcards from the era of the early 20th century because of the process used to publish them. Each of these antique postcards is a lithograph; a black and white drawing made into a stamp, with the coloring added by hand or some early process. This early lithographic process resulted in cards with beautiful coloring that have a romantic, vintage look. Due to the human factor in making these post cards, some are more brilliant than others, so that they are now collectible postcards.
Like many other hobbies, collecting vintage postcards not only gives a beautiful image of a place from a time past, but also provides an interesting reason to go searching the history of the area. I soon found myself on a treasure hunt, viewing historic pictures of the towns, reading history, and trying to determine the age of the card from old images of the town and the markings on the card.
This hobby also turned out to be a great way to start a dialogue with older family members. Showing or sending a card to a favorite grandparent of their hometown as it looked 100 years ago invites them to reminisce. I try to write it all down and save it to pass on to the next generation or those genealogy enthusiasts in our family. Better yet, I can take one of these images with my own family and friends and go searching the town history. It becomes a great pastime and a reason to go traveling.
If you would like to send a favorite grandparent, relative, or friend a gift with a vintage image of their hometown, please see our Products page.
We have hundreds of antique images of America. If you don't see the location that you are interested in, please check back as we will be adding images and gifts all the time. Please enjoy browsing this site and the images of the original cards that hopefully will guide you on a new found hobby of learning American History through vintage postcards.
~M. Parsons
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