Library deltiology

Deltiology is the hobby of collecting and studying postcards. I have discussed library postcards before on this blog and often use postcards to illustrate posts. As I have mentioned before there are tens of thousands of library postcards so I have limited my personal collecting to certain specific categories of postcards. However, I am always on the lookout for the more unusual library postcards regardless of the category. Sometimes I find these cards on eBay but it is more fun to find them by searching through the offerings of postcard dealers at postcard shows. I am fortunate that the Madison, Wisconsin area has two great postcard shows each year sponsored by the local postcard club. I attended one of those shows this past weekend, a great activity on a cold winter day. One of the things that I noticed at the show was that there are more and more dealers who have a "library" category designated in their offerings. This tells me that there must be a growing number of people who are interested in library postcards. I found the postcard shown in this post at the postcard show that I attended this weekend. It is a Tuck's postcard which was published by the British publisher Raphael Tuck & Sons which was founded in 1866, but didn't start publishing postcards in a big way until the start of the "Golden Age" of postcards in 1899. The postcard shown is an "Oilette", a category of Tuck postcards that was based on original oil paintings. This painting is by a Prof. M. Schaeffer and it depicts a scholar in a German library. It is a used postcard mailed within Germany on June 22, 1916. The Tuck company facilities were destroyed in a bombing attack during World War II which included its archives and original art work. More about the collecting of library postcards can be found HERE.