Friday, April 22, 2011

Vintage Postcards - Yellowstone

Back before Facebook and Twitter, and even before email, a nice way to send someone a short message, perhaps to share scenes from a place you were visiting, was with a postcard. I really enjoy the vintage cards.

A gentleman named Richard Saunders published a book (in 1997) called Glimpses of Wonderland. The book is about the Haynes postcards of Yellowstone National Park. To start to appreciate this, one has to love Yellowstone, history, photography, and the art that goes into printing fine cards. That would describe me to some extent, so in this post we are taking a look at some vintage postcards in my collection. The cards were published by Haynes Studios (Official photographers Yellowstone Nat'l Park, Wyo) back when domestic postage was 1 cent.  They were a set of 10, all in the same style, highlighting some of the scenic sights. I actually learned something new when putting this post together. A photograph whose edges shade off gradually is known as a vignette. Although Haynes published thousands of cards, he only had a few Vignette sets. The date of publication for these cards is right around 1920.

If you are new to Yellowstone, I hope these cards might make you want to visit the Park. It truly is deserving of its nickname, Wonderland.

Golden Gate Canyon 10079

Click on cards for slightly larger view

Great Fall and Pt. Lookout 10120


Cleopatra Terrace 10809


Grand Canyon from brink of Fall 10123


Old Faithful Geyser 10110


Grotto Geyser Formation 14029


Punch Bowl Spring 10097


Great Fall, 308 Ft. 10124


New Crater Geyser 10084


Electric Peak, 11,155 ft. 10081

12 comments:

  1. Nice post, John. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. love those old cards..thanks for sharing.

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  3. These are real nice postcards. I started collecting vintage postcards when I was 5 years old – well they were my grandfather’s. By now I have several hundred at least or more. I try to include a vintage postcard in my posts as often as I can. If you go to the side of my blog under “categories” you will see that I have 66 posts with at least a vintage postcard in it. In my post “January… Time to Travel” I explain how I got started http://avagabonde.blogspot.com/2010/02/january-time-to-plan-travels-part-ii.html. I also buy new postcards wherever I go and like to send them to family and friends – this is done a lot more in Europe that here. I go to old postcard shows but we don’t have many around here and I buy them at flea markets. Now I‘ll have to look for postcards from Yellow Stone! I enjoyed your postcards.

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  4. John, these are wonderful vintage postcards! What a fine collection you have of a most amazing national park. 1 cent for postage ... now that was a long time ago!

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  5. I love this post - nostalgic beauty!

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  6. Neat postcards; wonderful subject matter. Brings to mind my first visit to Yellowstone as a kid with my first camera: an Instamatic complete with square flashbulbs. Oh my.

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  7. I Love anything and everything vintage! :) Great Post John!

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  8. John, these postcards are really lovely! Sorry I missed this post till now, but I'm glad I stopped by, even if a bit late. These are really nice and transport me to a bygone era. Super post!

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  9. very cool! last time i visited Mom out there, we went to Yellowstone. these old postcards are very cool. and buffalo are HUGE!!

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