When was the last time you received a handwritten postcard? The act of sending postcards while on holiday has declined in the digital era as social media has allowed the instantaneous sharing of snaps and messages. Does it threaten to make the postcard obsolete entirely? We take a look back at its history and argue the case for resurrecting this sentimental souvenir of holidays past.  

Read on to discover the origins of the postcard and where its future lies...

For a long time the very first postcard was thought to have been sent in Austria in 1869 with the picture postcard following a few years later. But this was disputed in 2002 when a picture postcard, dating from 1840, was sold at auction in London for more than £31,000 ($43.4k). The hand-painted card, complete with a Penny Black postage stamp, is now thought to be the world’s oldest postcard. It was sent to playwright and novelist Theodore Hook in Fulham.

The fashion for sending picture postcards cards as souvenirs was fuelled by the Paris Exhibition of 1889. Sending a postcard from the post office within the newly built Eiffel Tower (then the world’s tallest building) became quite the thing to do. The oldest postmark stamped on a postcard showing the Eiffel Tower is 21 August 1889.

In 1894, the Royal Mail allowed British publishers to manufacture and distribute picture postcards, which could be sent through the post without envelopes. Then in 1902, Britain became the first country to divide the back of the postcard, allowing the address and message to be written on the back with a full-sized picture on the front. Other countries followed suit, including the US in 1907.

The combination of printing technology, cheap postage and efficiency of the postal system led to a massive increase in the sending of picture postcards. They were a quick and low-cost means of communication before the telephone was widely used. “Postcards were the prime social networking tool of its days,” according to Dr Julia Gillen who heads up Lancaster University's the Edwardian Postcard Project, which looks at how the medium affected communication in the Edwardian era.

With up to six post deliveries a day in major cities – sometimes as many as 10 in London, people knew they would be received within hours. As such around six billion cards were posted in the period; you could even send postcards from trains. Pictured here is a photographic postcard depicting the Proclamation of King George V in 1910, one of the many in the collection of David Shaw Postal History dealers.

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Brian Lund, publisher of the Picture Postcard Annual, agrees that the “golden age” of picture postcards was from 1902–1918. “That was when most were produced, collected and sent. The absolute peak year was 1907. From 1902–1918 you see most areas of human life covered on postcards but after that it was mainly comic cards and touristy views.” Some Edwardians even commissioned their own photography, says Dr Gillen whose X feed is a treasure trove of missives from the fashion-conscious era.

Many poignant correspondences were sent between soldiers and their lovers during the First World War. Embroidered silk postcards were a particularly popular memento to send from the frontline. Brian believes postcards provide unique insights into social history. “Postcards are endlessly fascinating and multi-faceted: picture, artist, photographer, stamp, postmark, message. All of human life is there. If you’re interested in anything, you’ll find it documented on postcards."

In 1918, the half-penny postage rose to a penny which led to a decline in the popularity of sending postcards so frequently. But the holiday postcard came into its own as the British seaside became an increasingly popular tourist destination after the war. Sending a postcard to those back home became an essential part of holiday tradition. 

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According to Brian: “The earliest tourist postcards were sent in the mid-1890s from the Grand Tour of Europe undertaken by wealthy Brits, but as more people went on holiday in the 20th century, more cards were sent home." The great British seaside holiday reached its height in the 1950s and 1960s when Brits flocked to seaside towns and resorts around the coast. 

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Cartoon-style saucy postcards became widespread in seaside resorts from the early 1930s onwards. "After 1918 the popularity of sentimental postcards sharply declined, making way for the comic postcards that would eventually define Bamforth & Co," writes Marcus Hearn in his book Saucy Postcards: The Bamforth Collection (published by Constable & Robinson). It charts the background of James Bamforth and his West Yorkshire studio's innuendo-laden postcards, which are highly collectible today.

Donald McGill was perhaps the most controversial postcard artist – some of his smuttier designs were banned for indecency by the newly elected Conservative government in the early 1950s. During his 60-year career, he produced over 12,000 postcard designs which became synonymous with tongue-in-cheek seaside souvenirs. You can see the offending postcards at the late artist’s eponymous museum on the Isle of Wight.

The Sixties and Seventies brought in the era of glorious technicolour to the postcard stands. John Hinde Studio was highly influential in the art of postcard photography with its vivid colours and depiction of everyday life in Britain’s holiday resorts. The photographer’s nostalgic and kitsch postcards are now highly collectible, especially those in the series commissioned by British seaside resorts chain Butlin's.

Long time fan of British seaside nostalgia Glen Fairweather has built up an impressive database of old postcards, which he showcases on his Flickr pages. “I used to collect mostly old British postcards for nostalgic reasons – it reminded me of family holidays and growing up in England during the 1970s and 1980s when the whole holiday scene was so different to what it is now,” he says.

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Glen puts his postcard habit down to a fascination with social history – he's charmed by the images and messages sent from a lost era. “I’ve always had an interest in it [social history], especially after the war years and how the British [people] went about their lives. Postcards give a glimpse into this,” he says. Glen, who now lives in the USA, also founded the Butlin's Memories website in 2000.

Delve into the world of deltiology (postcard collecting) and you'll discover it's a surprisingly popular pursuit. According to Brian, any postally used cards are unique and therefore collectible. “They're art, social history and real life as it was lived. Photographic street scenes, for example, are a snapshot in time.” He says the most collectible cards are originals depicting the Titanic, Art Nouveau and railway stations.

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Rare antique postcards can command impressive prices – one written from the Titanic sold for £14,000 ($19,600) back in 2002. According to buying and selling site eBay, at one point, 180,000 postcards were sold on its site in three months, which equates to one every minute. There are currently more than eight million collectible postcard listings live, with designs ranging from seaside humour to round-the-world.

Someone shining the spotlight on the lost art of postcard writing is Tom Jackson. In 2017 he released a book (pictured) off the back of his popular Twitter (now X) account @PastPostcard. In its introduction, author Mark Haddon says: "This book is not quite visual art and it's not quite social history. It's a collection of very short and somewhat cryptic stories set in the drowned Atlantis of the Sixties and Seventies."

Tom says he became fond of postcards as a child – both keeping those he received and spending his holiday pocket money on cards as souvenirs. “I stuffed them in a shoebox, then about 20 years ago I got a bit more interested in postcards and started collecting them in a more serious way – particularly cards from the 1900s. But any that interested me really,” he says.

A couple of years ago he was struck by the affinity between Twitter (now X) and postcards. “So I started putting up these cards that are really very undesirable for the most part – they’re not valuable or collectible cards. In some ways they’re the dullest of dull cards,” he says. But he has since amassed over 102,400 followers to his funny, cryptic and poignant one-liners pulled from his extensive collection.

“Even the messages are quite dull or certainly very ordinary,” says Tom. “But what I realised was by isolating part of the message it gave it room to shine.”

He believes the messages scrawled on the back of old postcards give a glimpse into national preoccupations and seemingly mundane details of life. “You hear phrases that you didn’t think were being used 50 years ago or you’ll be reminded of things that were going on that perhaps you’d forgotten. There’s something quite fresh about the reality of the voices,” says Tom.

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So does he send postcards himself? “I do if at all possible,” he says. "Although I’m not a crusader for postcards, just interested that they exist. But having spent a lot of time looking at them I think they’re generally quite considered, thoughtful and concerned for the person they’re writing to. They’re a bit more open-hearted than some social media that can be a little bit narcissistic – especially when people start editing pictures and putting filters on them."

In today's seaside resorts and tourist destinations, you’re far more likely to see someone wielding a selfie stick on holiday than putting a pen to postcard. But despite the decline of this classic travel memento, there may be hope yet. Postcard app TouchNote has brought the tradition into the 21st century using mobile phone technology and personalisation – over 15 million postcards have been sent through the service to date.

TouchNote takes some of the hassle out of sending a postcard. "We've made it quick and easy to do the thoughtful thing of sending a postcard when you’re on holiday," former CEO Oded Ran said. "We’ve all experienced that challenge of picking a postcard, trying to find an open post office and forgetting the word for 'stamp'. You'd arrive home and see the people you sent it to – who still hadn’t received it, weeks later! TouchNote’s made that hassle and frustration disappear."

He has faith that the postcard will endure as people still value tangible things. "Although we’re living in the digital age, it’s our experiences in the real world with friends and family that mean the most to us. We want to share new and happy moments with people far away – and postcards help us to do that in a tangible way... We’ve seen this with the recent resurgence in vinyl and print book sales holding their own amidst the rise of the e-reader.”

But if even that still seems a little too traditional for you, today you can send a coconut instead. The cumbersome but cute hand-painted "cards" are popular among tourists in Hawaii, although Naomi Young of Coconut Messages says modern regulations mean they have to be inspected by the USDA, which is putting many off. 

She picks her coconuts from her own farm on Kauai before hand painting them with personal messages and pictures. "Sending a coconut is far more impressive than any other cards," she says. "It makes people smile, especially kids, and it will last more than 50 years. When I ship coconuts, I feel like I am sending their dream with great memories." And who can argue with that?

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