Postcard Friendship Friday 121 - red, white and blue

Just about time during the half-time interval of the latest Euro 2012 football match to submit a post for this week's Postcard Friendship Friday. Taking the red, white and blue theme, I have dug out this heraldic, vintage postcard of Hastings, Sussex, which contains a red, white and blue coat of arms. I particularly like all the people promenading in their Sunday best, and also the bandstand. We visited Hastings last year but I don't remember the bandstand being there still - maybe I'm wrong though - I hope so.

Vintage postcard of Hastings, Sussex, c.1905

More vintage postcards of Sussex can be found on my web site

    

Vintage postcards of Town Halls

Today's vintage postcard blog theme is Town Halls. Not typically something that would fire my imagination, but these postcards bring them to life. A mixture of artist drawn and printed postcards, with my favourite probably being the one of Cheltenham Town Hall.

Cheltenham Town Hall, published by Photochrom, c.1938

Leeds Town Hall

Ipswich Post Office and Town Hall

Portsmouth Town Hall from Victoria Park, published by Raphael Tuck, c.1905

Portsmouth Town Hall, published by Stengel

Thanks for everyone's comments on my previous blog entries - I hope you like today's as well. As always, vintage postcards like these can be found on my vintage postcards web site

Vintage postcards of Edinburgh

I picked up a whole batch of vintage postcards of Edinburgh last week. Quite a mixed bag, but some great cards in amongst them. Whilst many seem to be of Princes Street, the variety of even these is incredible, with sometimes exactly the same picture with a different finish ... a black and white original vs. a colourised photo, or inset against a tartan border as in this example.

In addition to the more common views of Edinburgh, there are also some lovely ones of Warrender Park, Waterloo Place and the G.P.O. Finishes are a mixture of artist drawn, real photographic and printed. Several also have heraldic crests or coats of arms.

Again, with my backlog of postcards to process ever increasing, it's likely to be a while before I get these on to my own web site, but I have managed to get a selected few onto my Flickr site recently.

The postcards of Edinburgh I have managed to list can be found on my vintage postcards of Scotland page.

Heraldic vintage postcards

I've recently come across several vintage postcards that display a coat of arms or a crest, specific to a location or university. Some of these are printed on the card, whereas others are embossed.

<- vintage postcard showing embossed 'Arms of Portsmouth', c.1905.





A curious addition to the postcard, probably dating back to when people felt a stronger need to belong to or be part of a certain place, and definitely back to a time when people showed more respect and allegiance to the royal family than perhaps today.

embossed coat of arms on a vintage postcard of the National Gallery, London, c.1906 ->