Antique & Vintage Postcards

A crisp linen-era celebration of civic architecture, this Tichno r Quality Views card renders the U.S. Post Office in Lynn, Massachusetts in cool lavender-white stone under a breezy New England sky — period automobiles nosed against the curb anchor the scene in the late 1930s with an effortless authenticity that building-history and automobile collectors alike will relish. The two-story Neoclassical Revival structure, with its tall pilasters, restrained ornamentation, and rooftop flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes, exemplifies the federal building program of the New Deal era, when the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts commissioned dignified public buildings for cities across America. Lynn, a historic shoe-manufacturing city north of Boston, received this handsome post office as part of that national effort. The card is unused, sharp at the corners, and retains strong color saturation typical of Tichno r's lithographic process — a clean example seldom found in this condition.