Overview

Postcards are an intriguing look at the world. They actually mimic photography in many ways, partly because

they are of the typical subjects popular with people & have the usual function of recording life’s little moments,

particularly in travel, but also they are a kind of primitive Facebook of their era. They sometimes bear a short

message & sometimes a postmark showing the incredible efficiency of the postal service in the early days over

very difficult & arduous long distance routes. I am particularly fond of collecting what the collectors usually call

RPPC or real photo post cards. These are printed on photographic papers with what is called a stamp box by

which the approximate date of the image can be dated if there is no postmark or other marking. I am even further

specialized in town & main street views of Central & Eastern Oregon. These are charming vignettes of life as it was

between 1900 & 1950 which is the limit of my collecting interest. These views have been selected randomly & do

not presume to constitute any kind of catalogue. There were many thousands of these cards published, but many

of them are exceedingly rare. The work of Bruno Bakowski of Bend, Oregon & Ole Hedlund of Madras, Oregon comes

to mind. I might find ten of them in a year’s search if I am lucky. These are fragile works on photo paper & have

not all survived in optimum storage conditions over the course of the years.

Town Views

The Oregon Town Views are gathered by Town for major towns, Highway Corridor for smaller towns along that

Corridor, & Counties for smaller villages & towns not otherwise identified with numbered State Highways. There

is also a category which covers some landscape locales, although roadside & main street America are of most

interest to me.

Special Views

This category covers anything that interest me in itself & does not constitute a single category, although some

themes will inevitably appear.