One-of-a-Kind
Advertising Postcards

I have collected advertising postcards for almost forty years. My restaurant and hotel postcards came much later – restaurants around 1995, hotels in 2002. I started collecting advertising in 1983. In September of that year, I started college in New York City. I hated the cafeteria, so thankfully my father was willing to continue my allowance. I received a check in the mail every Monday for $15; I spent it on groceries, an occasional meal at the automat, and other necessities.

On the first day in a class devoted to social history, our professor asked us to create three lists. He explained that this assignment would be a semester-long project. From memory – research was forbidden – we were to list products or services we used regularly (at least once per week). The second list was to be products and services we used but only seldomly (on an average of once every month or every other month). The third list was to be products or services we never used but knew about.

At first, I thought this would be a fun assignment. I had an inkling that it would in some way entail television advertisements and how viewers retained their messages. But, I was seriously concerned about not doing research. I simply did not want to rely on memory to create my three lists. I solved my problem in a unique way. I returned to my dormitory one day soon after that class and found a postcard on the floor by our mailboxes. The postcard advertised a 10% discount if you went down to the restaurant’s Bleeker Street location and spent more than $6 – drinks were not included.

My friend Alice and I went the next night. Pasta dishes were $2.00 to $2.50, if we both ordered pasta, sodas, and a tiramisu for dessert we would qualify for the discount. Our plan worked, the waiter deducted 65 cents from our tab and he let us keep the postcard for our next visit. That was my first advertising postcard.

I thought of it at dinner that night. If I collect postcards about products and services, that wouldn’t be research, so I wasn’t breaking the rule. Naturally one thing led to another, and I started collecting every advertising postcard – old or new – that I could find. Sadly I never got to use my postcards to make my lists. That was the year my mother passed, and I left school six weeks before the semester ended.

My postcards have been a never-ending source of joy. I don’t remember the details now the way I did years ago, but I can still remember when I found most cards and how much I paid for them. How much I paid is no longer important to me, but the memories of finding the card and the people I met or talked to are very precious.

Andrew is my eldest grandson. He is 26. He came to visit the other night and found me going through my album of cards that I call “only ones.” As most collectors, I keep my sets together, but I keep cards that advertise a product, and it is the only one I have on that product, separately. Andrew was charmed by the whole idea of collecting postcards. He never knew that his grandmother was a collector before that night.

Naturally, Andrew asked which ones were my favorites. I picked out five and wrote this story in hopes that maybe other collectors who read Postcard History would enjoy seeing them too.