The Novelty of Postcards

Embroidered postcard
Embroidered postcard
Embroidered postcard
Woven silk postcard
Copper window postcard
Numbers postcard

It’s always exciting here at the Curt Teich Postcard Archives when the latest issue of Image File arrives from the printer. Image File is the illustrated journal for the Teich Archives. It provides a forum where images enhance articles and essays on twentieth century culture. The publication offers well researched articles on a variety of topics, richly illustrated with images from the author’s resources or the Archives vast collection. The latest issue’s cover story is about bullfighting, a timely story indeed as the last bullfight in Catalonia was held in La Monumental arena in Barcelona on Sunday, November 13th. A vote by the Catalonian Parliament in 2010 called for an end to the controversial spectacle in that region.

The long tradition of bullfighting in Catalonia and Spain may be coming to an end, but in Mexico in the 1950s it was flourishing in a little town south of the border called Ciudad Acuña. The story about La Macarena, a popular nightclub, restaurant and bullring in Ciudad Acuña paints a romantic picture of this Mexican town and of the women who came there to be bullfighters in the middle of the twentieth century. The article is illustrated with some very colorful posters that advertise the bullfights held in the Plaza de Toros Macarena and images of the interior and exterior of the nightclub. My favorite illustration for this article, however, is a beautifully embroidered postcard showing a woman in a colorful dress made of silken stitches. It is one of three embroidered postcards donated to the Teich Archives by a private collector showing figures dressed in Spanish influenced attire.

These postcards belong to a genre called novelty cards that includes hold-to-lights, die cuts, puzzles, copper windows, and many other types of postcards that are not view or advertising cards. The Curt Teich Company of Chicago specialized in advertising and view postcards so no novelty cards came in the original material donated to the Lake County Discovery Museum in 1982. In the past three decades of the Archives’ existence many novelty cards have made their way to the Teich Archives through private donations like the John High Collection which contains puzzles, months of the year, alphabets, numbers, woven silks, hold-to-lights, and copper windows. When held to a light source the images in the hold-to-light postcards are enhanced as the light lets additional images appear. The copper windows postcards have metallic chips in the windows of the buildings and they appear to glow from within.

In my constant search for postcards in today’s marketplace I’ve noticed that most of the images available are scenic or art cards. Only occasionally do I come across anything that could be classified as a novelty postcard. Interesting and charming, novelty postcards are little gems of printing ingenuity and hold a prominent place in the history of postcards. Because most of the research requests that come to the Curt Teich Postcard Archives are for the subjects and locations printed on view or scenic postcards the novelty cards that are in our collections are rarely used except for exhibits. What a delight it was to see the beautiful embroidered Spanish lady on the cover of image File and now it’s my pleasure to share her with you.

Image File is a benefit of membership for the Curt Teich Postcard Archives. For more information see the membership page on our website.