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Short-lived frenzy over leather postcards

Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents

I wasn’t exactly sure what the leather notecards were when I saw them in the glass case at the auction house, so I asked to see them. Handing the tray of cards to me, the staffer mentioned that they were leather postcards.

When I turned them over, I could see the place where a stamp would be affixed in the upper right corner and an address in the center. The staffer added, “Every one I’ve seen has been from around 1906, 1907.”

The cards were made of soft leather with both humorous and romantic messages tooled into them. “Do Unto Others As You Would Be Done By,” said one showing a tall woman, her hair in a pompadour, kissing a shorter man. “Be It Ever Humble There’s No Place Like Home,” intoned another featuring four fat hogs eating from a trough.

leather postcards
Up-close view of leather postcards at auction.

Leather postcards were very popular from the around 1905 to 1910 – smack in the middle of what is considered the golden age of postcards in this country. The first postcards were authorized by Congress and issued by the Postal Service. They were paper postcards with one-cent stamp impressions.

The paper cards were originally called postal cards. They were first issued in Austria in 1869, spread to Europe and then to the United States where they grabbed the interest of Congress around 1870. The idea was not readily embraced, though, with some members fearing they could contain messages that were damaging and libelous.

The first postal cards went on sale in 1873 for a penny each. They were eagerly snatched up by the public, and over the years women used them more often than men. Their messages varied, from recipes to the “last quarrel they had with their husband,” a writer for the Baltimore Sun newspaper griped in 1903.

leather postcards
A grouping of leather postcards with humorous messages.

The first private postcards came into existence in 1869 and used the same postage as a letter. Souvenir cards bearing photos – some were no more than Post Office cards with pictures on the back – were being sold near the end of the 19th century.

These new cards caused some confusion, however. People were mailing them with one-cent stamps assuming that the postage was the same as the Post Office cards. It was not, causing a headache for postal workers, according to an article in a 1907 trade magazine.

According to the Post Office, if a card had no message, it required a one-cent stamp. If there was a message, the cost was two cents. In 1898, Congress set the rate at a standard one cent. That also applied to leather postcards, which were said to have first been used in 1903.

leather postcard
Address side of leather postcards.

“The postal clerks are also on the lookout for immoral cards, few of which escape their argus eye,” the 1907 article noted.

The leather cards posed another problem for the post office. They were adversely affecting the sorting machines.

Both types of cards, paper and leather, were also popular with tourists. One of the cards at auction appeared to be from someone who had bought it in St. Augustine, FL, in 1905 and wrote in a note on the card that he/she was headed to Palm Beach.

Another of the auction cards bore the name W.S. Heal, an artist who was said to have made some of the more successful cards. His cards, like the ones at auction, carried humorous and amusing messages and images.

leather postcard
Leather postcard with  one-cent stamp, postmarked 1905.

Leather cards were made of deer hide, and the design was burned into the leather by a process called pyrography. Some were also inked. Holes were made into the cards – some of the ones at auction had holes in all four corners – so they could be stitched together for pillow covers and wall hangings.

One article in a 1906 trade newspaper in Australia noted that in America, the cards had become such a fad that they had boosted the leather market. “The fact that women are making soft pillows out of the leather postcards is mainly responsible for the increased demand,” according to the article.

Most leather postcards are not valuable. The sale prices for individual cards were low on eBay, and many were not selling. Some large lots were selling for $50 and more. A retail site was selling them for $5 each. A figural leather postcard in the shape of Theodore Roosevelt in a safari outift and a postcard coin purse sold for $382 (with buyer’s premium) at auction in 2012.

figural Theodore Roosevelt leather postcard
This figural Theodore Roosevelt leather postcard sold at auction in 2012 for $382. Photo from cowanauctions.com.

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