Postcards still popular

Reporter Michelle Lee of the Press of Atlantic City website reports, "...despite the stiff digital competition, the old-fashioned postcard still thrives."

Postcard stamps sold in America remained steady at about 5 million over the past five years, said Raymond Daiutolo, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman.

In 2006, almost 6 million postcard stamps were sold

Donald Brown, founder of the Institute of American Deltiology, a postcard research center in Myerstown, Pa., is quoted in the article as saying, "While millions of postcards still go through the mail, that pales in comparison to the billions mailed in the "golden age," from 1898 to 1918."

According to Brown, picture postcards started with the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. They grew in popularity because people were able to purchase something in print that illustrates some aspect of our life, art, culture, hobbies, or travels and towns.

In Atlantic City, a popular seaside resort on the east coast of the United States, 17 million postage stamps were sold in 1911, most used for postcards, Brown said, quoting the book "Picture Postcards in the United States", 1893-1918."

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