Category: Postcards

Antiquing

September 20, 2025

We visited an antique show and a couple of antique shops today. I’m feeling poorly and tired since I got my Covid shot yesterday but there was a lot of cool things to see and that energized me. Here’s most of what we bought:

The left is a (wooden) box of postcards that was tied in such a way you couldn’t see the cards. For $5 I (of course) took a risk and it turned out to be a good buy since it was about 20 cards that will all be good for postcrossing. The right was a set of 12 ‘hotel’ cards that only cost a few dollars and will also be sent via postcrossing.

We bought these great stickers from an artist that specialized in dark and hellish art. If you want one of these let me know. I probably should bought a t-shirt…

More postcards, in this actual autographed cards from DJs of a NYC radio station. They seem quite old (1980s?) and the guy on the left is well-known enough to have his own Wikipedia page! I’ll be sending both of these home next time we go to NYC 🙂

This lot of old (70s and 80s) comics cost me $20, which is a good price considering they’re all in good condition and are even bagged and boarded. I think the seller just didn’t want to carry them back to his car after the show! I’m especially looking forward to reading the Godzilla ones.

This is a photo of two guys in a field – from May 1980 – that has been printed on the back to be a postcard! I wonder who these people are, and how their private photo ended up in a random box of stuff at an antique fair? Even though it’s flimsy (as old printed photos were) I’m certainly going to mail this one day and see if it arrives.

Kristin purchased this silver ‘uranium glass’ ring. The girl that crafted this gets her glass from the Czech Republic and the ring came with a black light so we could appreciate how it glows (photo on right).

It’s quite a niche: specializing in jewelry using uranium glass. And selling it outdoors on a sunny day is its own challenge, but hers was a unique display and KLS likes it even when not ‘glowing’.

Look at this weird puzzle postcard! The puzzle is inside a shallow plastic tray which is sealed in plastic and has a space to address and write on the other side. It’s hard to believe this would ever arrive safely, but of course I’m going to put that to the test.

The same guy I bought the comics from had these ten RPG handbooks, and I was interested in the GURPs Horror one. When I asked how much he said he’d sell me all ten books for $5, a deal so insane I couldn’t open my wallet fast enough. I like reading old RPG sourcebooks and these will last me years.

Last but not least is this set of 10 postcards that the seller described as ‘Chinese propaganda’. Of indeterminate age, they cost me only $2 and they are all printed on the front with the label ‘female Chinese soldiers‘. I took the seller at face value, but when I got them home and opened them I’m really wondering what these actually are.

The back of each – they are all unique – seems to have a short piece of fiction printed on it. The above screenshot is a translation and I’m sure you agree this doesn’t exactly seem like propaganda. Whatever these are, they’re strange and I love them. Want one?

I’ll end with an item I didn’t buy: this laughably long matchbook from Santa’s Workshop, which is a Christmas-themed ‘theme park’ north of hear close to Canada. Look at the length of this thing! If it was a third of the price, I probably would have bought it just because of how silly it is 🙂

As I said this was most of what we bought. I also picked up a couple of gifts that will remain secret, and KLS got some vegan cake and a cookie 🙂

Winning The McLottery

September 6, 2025

Remember this? Yesterday I waltzed into a Maccas and saw this sign at the register:

I was agog, and could hardly throw my money at the manager fast enough. As everyone predicted the meal itself was a failure (he said everyone hated the weird milkshake), and he said he had ‘two cases’ of the toys ‘to get rid of’.

I bought ten, but he gave me twelve. In retrospect I was so astonished by what was happening I was a fool, and should have purchased twice as many.

One of the six still eludes me: the Ronald Macdonald tin. If I see them for sale again, I will certainly buy more.

And of course this also means I now have 26 of the wonderful postcards….

The Japan Postcards

July 2, 2025

In my two weeks in Japan I sent a vast amount of postcards! It’s so easy to find good ones there that I just kept buying, and the same is true for stamps. I hope you liked the ones I sent you.

I sent a ridiculous 52 cards home, or about 3.5 every day. About a third were typical tourist cards, and some are shown above. I find writing cards in hotel rooms very relaxing, and every evening I’d do that with anime on the TV and snacks close at hand.

The Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford cards were purchased in Japan a few years ago, and the other two were found in antique shops here and Australia. I actually found a sizeable stash of geisha cards; maybe I sent you one of them?

The Kamen Rider card game from the Ishinomori museum I visited on a day trip, and I regret not buying more from their selection. Almost every museum or attraction in Japan sells postcards, and they’re often good ones. I assume the Japanese must still enjoy sending them.

Illustration cards are very popular in Japan as well, and I’m always spoiled for choice. The ones above were purchased in various locations but the top right one, which depicts a ningen yokai, is something special. The black, blue and gold are not printed ink, they are pieces of paper glued to the background! It’s hand made and was quite expensive (¥780) but it was one of about a half dozen designs and so well done I wish I’d bought more.

The card on the left is some sort of melon girl mascot (for Matsushima?) and I bought a blind pack of three cards (there were 20 different varieties), and the one on the right was in a pack of cards I purchased in Sendai. As for the middle one, it’s over 30 years old and came with a VHS tape we bought decades ago 🙂

On previous trips some of the unusually shaped cards took ages (sometimes months) to arrive and I always wondered why. I’m happy to say I now know it was always simply me not putting enough postage on.

So now I know how to mail large or unusual cards from Japan, and I took the chance to send this gigantic lenticular example, which is twice the size of a normal card! It arrived in only a week or so, which means that next time I may be able to send and even bigger lenticular card I purchased a few years ago.

As for the backs of the cards, I took the chance to imprint eki stamps on them whenever I could. I didn’t find as many as my last trip, but most of those I did was of extremely high quality. The Hakodate Ropeway stamp in particular is amazingly detailed, and I wish I’d had more than onky two cards with me when I found it (up on the mountain). Why can’t all eki stamps be that good?!

It’s fun buying stamps in Japan. It’s almost always the same routine: the postal workers are hesitant and nervous until I show the translator screen and then they seem surprised and delighted that a tourist is actually buying postage stamps!

Often two or three clerks help me at the same time, and I assume this is because I’m a foreigner and some of them want to practice their English. With the exception of the larger post offices in Tokyo, very rarely do they actually speak English but sometimes they seem to have a basic understanding.

You may recall the old Japanese stamps I received from a Postcrosser? I used them all during this trip and I was pleased to see they all ‘worked’!

Much like Australia, Japan issues collectible stamp sets and while the majority are anime-based, how could I resist these cute animals? Maybe next time I’ll get the Frieren or Dungeon Meshi ones…

While I’m traveling solo in Japan I rarely speak, and perhaps this is why I don’t run out of things to write on postcards. The ones from this trip are now in my Japan binder, which is so full it’s time for me to begin a second one. I’m already looking forward to the cards I’ll send myself from the next trip 🙂

Robot Claw