“PENNY” Postcards - A Random Memory

By Ann M. Russell

How many of you remember when postcards actually did cost one cent?

I had a shock the other day when I went to the post office and found out that postcards now cost 25 cents. Wow, now that is inflation! But I guess not really for my fondest memories of penny postcards go back 60 years.

I guess I should also ask how many remember when free samples (and they were free) were offered in magazines.

Well, I can remember my mother investing the large sum of, perhaps, 30 cents in penny postcards. Then, on a rainy day, dividing them between my sister and I and giving us several of her women’s magazines, a scissors, glue and pens. The two of us would sit for hours deciding on what free samples were the very best. Little lipsticks, little bottles of nail polish or cream, perfume, all sorts of things that women like (and we were just little women then). Decisions then had to made as to who would get the red shade and who really wanted the pink. I can also remember trying to write like a grown-up (not sure how that went) so that the people sending us all these wonderful things would not think we were just kids and throw away our requests. Writing, clipping them out and pasting on cards took up quite a bit of time too.

Requests then had to be carefully divided up so that two requests, going to the same address, would not be received on the same day.

Anticipation then was a wonderful thing - which one of us would get something first! Would we each get the same amount? Would we receive a lot in one day or would the little envelopes be spread over a period of time? The fun of the postcards lasted for quite some time.

Even though I had to pay 25 cents each for the postcards I bought recently, the memories of rainy afternoons with penny postcards, I think, made the price worthwhile.