Antique & Vintage Postcards

With a bowler hat tilted at a jaunty angle and a saxophone nearly as big as he is, a scruffy terrier blows his heart out on this irresistible Australian novelty card — the caption below declaring Adelaide "This Place is worth blowing about," a pun that must have landed with a groan and a grin in equal measure when someone popped it in the post. Illustrated by George White in his signature whimsical animal style, the card is a Valentine's Mailing Novelty — a proprietary format by the storied Valentine & Sons publishing house — and hides within its lower edge a concertina accordion pull-out strip of crisp black-and-white photographs of Adelaide's landmarks: King William Street (shown twice, in two different eras of development), the River Torrens, Pennington Gardens, and the solemn War Memorial. The strip closes with a printed footer reading "Adelaide, S.A. / Valentine Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd., Melb. & Sydney," anchoring the geography and publisher neatly. The back is the classic Valentine's Mailing Novelty format, printed in Great Britain, with fields for "From" and "To" — never filled in.