Antique & Vintage Postcards

Old and new worlds collide in a breathtaking piece of 1930s commercial fantasy art — artist Stanley A. Piltz rendered a massive Pan American Airways flying boat (almost certainly the Boeing 314 "Clipper") banking low over San Francisco Bay in a dramatic double-exposure composite with a full-sailed 19th-century clipper ship entering the Golden Gate, the half-built bridge glowing amber at sunset behind them both, a visual ode to the age when transoceanic flight was just supplanting the age of sail. The full caption reads: "Arrival of the Clippers — The Queen of the Air Dips in Salute to the Clipper of the Seven Seas, Entering the 'Golden Gate', San Francisco, Calif." The reverse carries a pencil-written message signed by someone named "Nana," postmarked in a city ending in "-ncisco, Calif." and dated what appears to be 1945 — placing it squarely in the waning days of World War II when the Clippers were flying military missions. Piltz's aviation art cards are among the most visually striking California linens ever produced and remain highly desirable to both aviation and Golden Gate Bridge collectors.