Antique & Vintage Postcards

Fishing boats crowd the quay at Húsavík on a rare clear Arctic day — their masts a forest of steel against the vast grey-green flank of Víðidalur mountain, while the distinctive white timber spire of Húsavíkurkirkja (the town's celebrated 1907 Norwegian-style church) rises above the colourful tin-roofed townscape. Húsavík, on Skjálfandi Bay in northern Iceland, was at this time a bustling herring and cod port; the red modernist building at right (likely a fish processing facility or hotel) and the fleet of 1960s–70s Land Rovers and saloon cars parked along the quay give the scene a vivid period character. Published by Sólarfilma s.f. of Reykjavík — Iceland's premier postcard house of the era — as No. 110, and printed under the "Íslenzk framleiðsla" (Icelandic production) mark by Grafik, this chrome-era card is a fine document of a fishing community before the Cod Wars reshaped the industry.