From stamps to envelopes and postcards, my guest’s collecting passions expanded when he bought a few cards at a sale and became fascinated by the postmarks (and messages). He’s an expert on postmarks and using them as a photo clue. We chat about the golden age of postcard printing and the bits of history a postcard can convey including a link to President Garfield’s assassination. Jim Mehrer tells some great stories relating to postcards–why they were sent and why we should definitely read the backs of old cards. I know he’s inspired me to take a second look at the ones in my collection.
Related Episodes:
Episode 139: Collecting Postcards for a Half-Century with Mark Routh
Episode 104: Clues in Group Portraits and Albums
Links:
- Postal-history.com
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About My Guest:
Jim Mehrer is an Illinois native and lifelong resident. After graduating from Augustana College in Rock Island, he spent several years managing independent retail stores.
In 1993, Jim combined his business management experience with his hobby interests and established Jim Mehrer’s Postal History. Since then, he has offered hundreds of thousands of items to collectors of postal history and postcards in his mail bid sales. Also, Jim offers related storage supplies and reference literature, including several titles that he has compiled and published.
Information about Jim’s business and the products he offers is on his websites at www.postal-history.com and www.deltiology.com.
About Maureen Taylor:
Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada. She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira). She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com