Postcards
Once upon a time, there were thousands of postcards sent every day. With two deliveries to each household per day, it was the nearest you could get to an instant message. If a letter or postcard was sent first class, and the address was local, it could be delivered the same day on the second delivery.
Deliveries in the UK were cut to just one per household or business per day in
A postcard could be purchased for pennies and the stamp was one more penny. Second class was a half-penny. And that's not 0.5p - it was 0.048p as we are talking old money here. (See my Old Money Page for more information about the system used before February 1971 in the UK).
These days, with a second class stamp costing 85p (or a first class stamp costing a massive £1.65), there isn't much incentive to send a postcard with simple message like 'wish you were here'. There's a dozen ways of doing that for free if you have a smart phone.
However, postcards are the perfect medium to print using a Victorian platen press. The sizing means we can get a nice crisp impression, and there's a reasonable amount of space for an illustration - 6 x 4 inches, to take the classic postcard sizing. That's 152.4mm by 101.6mm in new money
Postcards printed so far
- HRG (1950's car)
- Actæon (GWR loco)
- Boulton-Paul Defiant (1940's aircraft)
