Welcome to Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards! My name is Richard Moody and I started the company in 1986 and we have been accumulating "old" (otherwise known as "vintage collectible") postcards for twenty years. We specialize in United States view postcards but we also have thousands of antique foreign views, topical postcards and trade cards. Our goal is to exceed your expectations and provide a superior selection of the collectible postcard you are searching for.
I wanted to add some more information on real photo postcards today just to give you a basic understanding of their background. First, you need to know that real photo postcards came on the scene as early as 1900 and still flourish today. Initially, they were used primarily as advertising vehicles and sepia tones and vignettes dominated through 1906. Then Congress allowed for the message to be included on the back and the entire front of the postcard became the photographer's pallet. The arrival of the "Folding Pocket Kodak" camera around 1906 was produced to satisfy the real photo postcard market and produced negatives that were postcard size allowing the user to record their surroundings and mail them to their friends and family. The camera even had a small thin door on the back which could be opened so the user could write information on the negative. The result was thousands of people becoming recorders of history in the making but the real key to their future value was that many were one of a kind photos rather than the massed produced printed postcards. The golden era of real photo postcards ran from 1906 to 1945 and came to an end as color photography came into the mainstream. Below are two examples of Alaska real photos with one of downtown Sakgway circa 1912 and one of downtown Wrangell from the 1930s.
