Antique & Vintage Postcards

Blazing white churrigueresque towers soar against a brilliant turquoise sky in this vivid Curteich linen postcard depicting the Sanctuary of Ocotlán near Tlaxcala — one of Mexico's most breathtaking 18th-century pilgrimage churches, its brick-red façade alive with carved saints and angels above a doorway of extraordinary intricacy. Photographed by William Berlin Goolsby for Curteich's celebrated C.T. Art-Colortone linen line, the composition is a textbook example of mid-century American travel-card craft at its best. The sender, Lil, dashed off a breezy note to her friend in Spencerport, New York — confessing that keeping track of Mexican money "is sure a problem but fun" — and dropped it in a Mexican mailbox in May 1947, affixing a 6-centavo Correos México stamp. The machine cancel reads "Seguro Social — Mayor Producción."