Antique & Vintage Postcards

A glittering embossed gold "Souvenir" luggage-tag badge crowns this richly tinted Celesque-series card of York Minster's magnificent Five Sisters Window — five lancets of grisaille glass dating to around 1250, shown alongside the cathedral's towering organ case — and when you lift the metal clasp, a concertina of miniature photographs spills out showing the Minster's west front, choir, Stonegate, Bootham Bar, The Shambles, Micklegate Bar, and St. Mary's Abbey, all of old York in one charming accordion. Sent from Salisbury on the back and addressed in a looping hand to "Miss E. B. P." at "Street Royal, Beaver & Pette Str., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.," the writer — who signs off as "Neil" — reports having been in York "last Sunday" and confesses they "can't seem to keep up in sending postcards from the places where I buy them." A 1d George V stamp (GB Scott #160) and a Salisbury duplex cancel complete the picture, making this a rare, multi-image novelty mailing with transatlantic provenance.