Antique & Vintage Postcards

A trio of Welsh women in the iconic tall black beaver hats and heavy woolen shawls of traditional Welsh national costume gather for tea outside a whitewashed thatched cottage overlooking a sparkling coastal bay — a romanticized but warmly rendered scene that served as the cover image for this ingenious "Pocket Novelty Card" from Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, postmarked July 5, 1936. Pull out the accordion-folded strip tucked inside and five crisp black-and-white photographs of Tenby's famous beaches unfurl: North Sands crowded with Edwardian-era bathers, Lexden Terrace on South Sands, South Sands with Cliff Walks and St. Catherine's Fort, and North Bay from the Harbour — a complete miniature tour of this beloved seaside resort in the palm of your hand. Sent from "M. LcK." with love to a Mrs. Twigg at 55 Sandford Road, Moseley, Birmingham 13, this novelty card is a charming artifact of British seaside holiday culture in the interwar years, published by E.T.W. Dennis & Sons Ltd. of London and Scarborough and bearing a half-penny George V green stamp.