In the hierarchy of art collectors there are definite social strata as sacred as those of any ant colony. At the top, perhaps, belong the collectors of Chinese jades and oil paintings. Then come the fanciers of antique furniture. Dead Sea scrolls, and Baccarat paper-weights. At the bottom of this social register languish the accumulators of cigar bands and the picture post-card collectors. But if he is close to the lowest rung of the acquisitive society, unrecognized by the museums and Duvecns, the post-card collector is nevertheless a kind of historian and, even if accidentally, serves a useful purpose.

The debut of the picture post card in the United States occurred at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. With its advent began a hobby and a collecting spree that whirled unabated until shortly after the First World War. Then suddenly the post-card album, a book second in importance only to the family Bible, vanished from atop the player piano.

At first, postal regulations permitted only the name and address of the recipient on the face of the card, so that of necessity messages defaced the illustrated side. In 1907, however, a key date to collectors, the Post Office Department relented: The faces of cards could be split down the middle to provide for address and message. This epochal decision saved the picture, unless, of course, you chose to mark X over some hotel window and label it “our room,” or, “the body was found here.” After 1907, therefore, the industry was off and running, and so was the hobby. While there were both artistic and trashy cards, sheer bulk was the general criterion of the collector even when he was a specialist, devoted, say, only to cats, Santa Claus, or the Yerkes Observatory. (The writer once chanced upon a large album containing only views of prisons and cemeteries.) Ordinarily, though, not a traveler stirred from his bailiwick without being charred with the stern responsibility of mailing post cards of his travels to his album-keeping friends. This each person did gladly, for he knew the bread he cast upon the mail-box waters would return to him sevenfold. In turn the post-card publishers endeavored not only to sell cards embracing a variety of subjects but also to provide for the public a printed post card of charm and originality, often superbly colored, even embossed.

Indeed, post cards were much more than a means of communication: for more than twenty-five years they trace history, a kind of homely view of life in the United States, and in much of the civilized world. Often when no one else did, they recorded the landscape; it was a rare village green or country trolley-crossing that did not have its card. They celebrated Home, Mother, and the Flag: they helped out in courtship (“To the Candy Kid,” or “Greetings to my Sweet Fluffy Ruffles”); they would Save