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Postcard Archives

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:31 pm
by jbabcock
Hello all,

This is my first post and I have to admit that I'm not a collector of postcards, myself. However, I am part of an exhibitions department at an institution in New York City and we are looking to mount an exhibition about late 19th century- early 20th century postcards that depict the landscape, people, and monuments along the Silk Road (basically from the Middle East to the Far East). So far I have visited the Penn Museum Archive and the Freer and Sackler archives in Washington, D.C. . Next week I have an appointment at the New York Public Library to look at their postcard collection.

Most of the postcards I have seen cover the far east decently, but there is a dearth of postcards that depict the Middle East.

I was wondering if any of you happen to know of any major postcard archives in Europe or in the U.S. that would maybe have what I'm looking for. Furthermore, if I were to go to a trade show, do you think there would be many dealers who would have anything of interest to us? Would a dealer be willing to lend postcards for an exhibition? To that end, does anyone here have a private collection or know of a private collection that may be of interest to us?

Any guidance would be appreciated. Many postcard archives in the US typically only have postcards depicting US cities, so I'm trying to follow any new leads anyone may have.

Thank you!

Re: Postcard Archives

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:34 pm
by davidnugget
https://tuckdb.org/ (also mentioned below) is by far the best online collection of postcards, good size images and a creative commons type license.
You would have to search by country name, eg Persia, Iraq or whatever in the Middle East (which here used be called the near east?).
It would be great if fans of other old publishers did this sort of thing!

Re: Postcard Archives

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 8:46 am
by eastlondonpostcard
Check out the British Museum: they are actively building an Postcard Archive of this part of the world with many of them viewable online:
http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2013/06/2 ... ddle-east/

Best Luck