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Today I want to show you how to recognize a rare old antique vintage postcard when you see it in your grandmother's postcard album. The postcard for today is a circa 1906 real photo view of "downtown" Laclede Missouri and I want to discuss why I think this is a great rare postcard. One is the best things going for it is the fact that it is a real photo which gives you a high quality very detailed view and real photo postcards are highly sought after today after years of neglect. Second, the condition of the post card is very good with no damage and no writing on the front. Third, the view shown is downtown, which is probably most of downtown in this small town, with several wagons and a buggy tied up on the left in an area that appears to be a town square. Fourth is the approximate date of the photo which I have estimated at 1906 for several reasons. The back of the post card says "This Side For The Address" which means it was made before 1 March of 1907 when postal law was changed to allow the address AND the message on the back. Also on the back is what is called the "stamp box", which is where you are suppose to put the stamp, and this normally has the name of the postcard stock used to make the card. In this case it shows Ansco's "Cyko" stamp box and the style of this box places the date about 1906. The fifth important aspect is the town of Laclede Missouri which was, and is, a very small town with the 1910 census showing a population of 740 which declined to 649 in the 1930s and was down to 415 people by the 2000 census. Small towns tend to have a much smaller quantity of post cards because there just were not that many potential customers. And while that is still true today as far as potential customers go, there are five or six generations of folks that grew up in this town and some their descendants are going to want to know what the town looked like where their parents, grandparents or great grandparents grew up in order to better understand their roots and to document their family genealogy. Other potential customers are the folks that collect Missouri towns and also the Linn County collectors. I have never seen a seen a postcard on this town before, much less a great real photo postcard, and I have been through literally millions of postcards. These early real photos were not mass produced like the printed cards and many are truly one of a kind. When you find a postcard like this that has a family connection, don't pass it up because the odds are you will never see another one. Catch postcard fever now and expand your horizons! Postcard collecting is lots of fun, educational, habit forming and very affordable. This postcard is available in my Missouri listings along with over 10,000 additional post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.
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