Antique & Vintage Postcards

Sweeping out from the Arc de Triomphe's observation platform in every direction, the boulevards of Haussmann's Paris radiate like spokes of a great wheel — and there, unmistakable in the hazy middle distance, rises the Eiffel Tower in a panorama that makes the heart lift even a century later. This "PC Paris" real-photo card, number 198 in the series, was mailed in 1925 from Paris to a Monsieur Georg in Vienna XIV (bei Haudinger), franked with two French Republic 25-centime "Semeuse" stamps and postmarked from the Seine department. The message, written in a dense European hand, fills every available centimeter of the writing space, suggesting an animated correspondent with much to report — the kind of card that carried the texture of a life across borders. Horse-drawn vehicles and early automobiles share the broad tree-lined avenues below, dating the photograph to the early-to-mid 1920s, a Paris still dazzled by its post-war renaissance.